


Echoes from Elsewhere

by YaYaSestrahood



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-05 05:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12183573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YaYaSestrahood/pseuds/YaYaSestrahood
Summary: The sisters are woken in the middle of the night by a shocking message from MK. In order to ensure a safe future for themselves and everyone they love, they'll have to channel the power lying dormant in their DNA."You need to go back. You need to save Beth Childs.”





	1. Resonance

**Author's Note:**

> I did my best to use canon as a base here, but including Helena's kids would have had some pretty horrifying ramifications. So, sorry, Helena never had kids. Fans of horrifying ramifications, don't despair! There will still be plenty of those.
> 
> Also, there may at some point be a major plot point tied to events in the Orphan Black comics (the first run and Helsinki), so some degree of familiarity with those might help. I'd be more specific, but... spoilers.

_It shouldn’t be like this anymore_ , Sarah thought. They had stopped it. All of it. Coady was dead. Westmorland was dead. The danger should have died with them.

They’d finally let themselves feel safe, let themselves believe they’d never again have to watch their children be whisked away into hiding. But here they were -- Sarah, Alison, Cosima, and Helena -- huddled under a bridge like rats.

“This is crazy,” Alison said. The others turned to her. “That message, it couldn’t have been real, right?”

There it was. A thick feeling of unease spread through the air.

_The message._

 

* * *

 

It had been sent to their phones that day, around three in the morning. An indecipherable link from an unknown number. They would have discounted it as spam, if not for the accompanying text: _It’s MK. Watch the video. URGENT._

Sarah’s heart caught in her throat. Could she really still be…?

The link took her to the video: Mika speaking into the camera. Her face was hidden behind a sheep mask, but the voice was unmistakable. Sarah felt the sting of tears in her eyes, and she bit down hard on her lip to stop them. She carried around so many regrets, and here on her screen was one of her biggest.

 _“Sisters._ _Please listen carefully to everything I’m about to tell you. This video will be deleted as soon as you’ve finished watching it. It is currently… 1:04 AM on April 12th, 2013.”_

April, 2013. Before Mika’s death. What little hope Sarah had allowed back into her heart vanished in that moment.  

_"If you’re seeing this, it means there are people still after us. It means that… for whatever reason, I’m unable to communicate with you directly. It means that you’re the only ones who can stop this."_

 

* * *

 

Cosima spoke up.

“They’re looking for us. We know that much.”

It had been a close call for Cosima. The message had put her on high alert, which was the only reason she’d noticed the whispers and light footsteps outside the entrance to her apartment. She was halfway down the fire escape before hearing the _bang_ of her front door being kicked open.

Thankfully, Delphine was out of town, but without a safe way to contact her, she had no way of knowing she was okay.

 

* * *

 

_“Throw away your phones. Do not try and contact your loved ones. Any electronic trace you leave will be enough for them to find you. I know because they found me.”_

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Alison conceded. Her voice was high, laced with panic. “Okay. There are people looking for us. But what about the other thing?”

She glanced around to her sisters, the same nervous look mirrored on all their faces. The silence was heavy.

_The other thing._

 

* * *

 

_“What I’m about to tell you will sound impossible. But it’s important that you please, please put your trust in me. All our lives depend on it. You, me, all our sisters - we have an ability.”_

There was a pause here in the video, several seconds of Mika shifting uncomfortably, heavy breathing trapped behind a mask. Finally, she spoke again.

_“We have the ability to send our consciousnesses back in time.”_

 

* * *

 

“I mean, time travel? Is that meant to be a joke?” Alison whispered furiously.

“Right, yeah,” Sarah grumbled. “It’s all just a big joke. Mika takin’ the piss from beyond the grave.”

“The attitude isn’t necessary, Sarah.” Alison jumped at the sound of a siren in the distance. “Fine. But you don’t honestly believe it, do you?”

 

* * *

 

_“Four of you. It won’t work with any fewer than four. Whatever this is that’s inside us, in our DNA, it needs to resonate with more of its own. Our power feeds into each other. Together, we can tear a hole in time.”_

A small, muted laugh came from behind the mask.

_“It’s pretty cool.”_

 

* * *

 

“I believe it,” Helena said, matter-of-factly. She gave a knowing look to Sarah, who wasn’t eager to return it. “We felt it.”

It had happened a few weeks ago.

 

* * *

 

It had been a slow process, but over time, Helena had grown more comfortable opening up about her past, and Sarah was the one she trusted most with it.

“There is still much darkness inside of me,” Helena had said. “I want to be healed, Sarah.”

So, Sarah listened and cried as Helena recounted every horrible abuse she’d suffered, some she’d even mistaken for kindnesses. Sarah’s own twin sister, ripped from the womb and dropped into a life of cruelty and suffering, the only thing she’d ever known. And still, somehow, her light had shone through.

It was during one of her more terrible stories (though they were all varying degrees of terrible) that it happened. Helena would always recount them in the same flat tone of voice, but this time, Sarah could tell it in the way she would pause for several seconds at a time, eyes darting wildly around the room. This memory was particularly painful.

Sarah watched Helena take another long pause, her chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. She reached out a hand and placed it gently on Helena’s wrist.

_And then…_

A sharp chill shot through the skin of her fingers and into her veins. An image tore into the front of her mind.

She was in her bedroom at S’s house, or… some version of it, the way it had looked when she was a child. Felix, maybe eight or nine years old, was sat in front of her, and she was drawing something on his arm. _She remembered._ The ‘tattoos’ they’d used to give each other, the ones they’d have to hide from S under long sleeves. One of several stupid things they used to do when they were bored. It was a memory she’d long forgotten, pushed back over the years into the recesses of her mind, but now it was here in front of her, crystal clear. She could see the dust particles floating in the light of the window. She could smell meat cooking downstairs. She felt herself losing awareness of where she really was.

That is, until she felt Helena jolt her arm back. The vision evaporated as quickly as it had appeared, and she watched Helena retreat to the other end of the couch, pulling her legs up to her chest, shivering violently. She stared back at Sarah, wide-eyed and afraid.

“Helena,” Sarah whispered, hoping more words would come. Whatever had happened seemed to have affected them both. It was hours before Helena spoke again, and they silently agreed not to bring it up again.

 

* * *

 

_“In order to jump, one of you will need to focus on a clear, powerful memory. If it’s strong enough, and if you allow your abilities to resonate with each other’s, you should all be thrown back to where you were at that moment in time.”_

 

* * *

 

“I don’t know _what_ I felt,” Sarah lied. She didn’t want to admit it, but Mika’s words were starting to make some sense.

Helena had been focusing on a powerful memory. Sarah touched her arm. Their powers “resonated,” whatever the hell that meant. They were both sent back in time. Partially, at least. Mika said they needed four to make the full jump.

The idea made Sarah sick. She had only started to feel like things could be normal, that she could have a life outside of all this clone shit. But this… if this was real, it was far from over. Far from _fucking_ normal.

“What happened? Do you know something?” Alison asked, shooting frantic glances between the two. Helena nodded and reached a hand toward Alison’s. Alison, in her jumpy state, instinctively pulled away.

“Please,” Helena said.

Alison said nothing but stood firm this time as Helena reached out again and took her hand. After a beat, Alison shuddered and jumped back, knocking into Cosima.

“What was that?” Alison asked, hysterical. “What _was_ that?”

“You know what it was.” Sarah said flatly. _Fine. Okay._ She had to accept it. This was their new reality. Time travel. Fucking time travel.

Alison shook her head back and forth, muttering to herself, lost in her own mind.

“If we’re gonna do this, it needs to be now,” Sarah said, digging up new determination. There was nothing to do but jump down this rabbit hole, just like the others, and hope they could find a way out. “They’ll find us soon.”

Cosima and Helena nodded. Alison’s face contorted with worry, her breathing quickened, but she didn’t object.

“Cos,” Sarah whispered, tender. “Y’alright with this?” Her eyes lowered to Cosima’s wedding band. Cosima’s followed. She twirled it back and forth between her fingers. They couldn’t be sure how things would change, what might be undone.

 

* * *

 

_“You’ll be in the past, but only for a short time. For me, it was a little over an hour. After that, your consciousness will jump back to the present. Not your current present, but a new present shaped by your actions in the past._

 

* * *

 

“Yeah,” Cosima said after a deep breath. “Yeah. I want to see a future that’s safe for us.” She looked around at all the others in turn. “All of us.”

She drew another deep breath, then took Sarah’s hand, held it tight.

“Besides, what kind of self-respecting scientist would turn down the opportunity to travel through time?”

She put on a brave smile, reached out to Helena who took her other hand. Everyone looked to Alison.

“We need you, sestra Alison,” Helena said, voice soft. The air was still as they waited. Somewhere, a car door closed, startling Alison. With a huff, she quickly grabbed the others’ hands.

“I’m not saying I believe it,” she said. “But if, if we get separated somehow, we should agree to meet back here.”

The others nodded. It seemed like a good enough idea. Alison shut her eyes tight.

“Dear Lord, please watch over us,” she began. No one protested. Slowly, their eyes closed and heads bowed. “We need you now, more than ever. Please protect us and our sisters. And let our new future be a bright one. Amen.”

“Amen,” they repeated.

Sarah felt Cosima gently squeeze her hand. Her cue to begin. She cast her mind back. She remembered the chill in the air that night. She remembered the hum of the lights hanging overhead. She remembered the feel of the concrete under her step.

A feeling like ice ripped through her body. Her blood ran cold. She felt herself lose balance.

She remembered the look on Beth’s face before she jumped.

 

* * *

 

_“It’s a longshot. But if there’s anyone who can help us, it’s her. You need to go back. You need to save Beth Childs.”_

 

* * *

Sarah felt herself falling, but she couldn’t tell in what direction.

One.

Two.

_Three._


	2. Many Beginnings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/GDlgwrr.png)  
> 

With a crack, warmth returned to Sarah’s body. Her body steadied as she sensed the ground take form under her feet. She felt different. _The air_ felt different. Her hands, which just a moment ago had been holding onto Cosima and Alison’s, had shifted into the pockets of her jacket. She heard a loud screech of metal on metal from somewhere ahead of her.

_A train._

She swallowed her fear. Slowly, she opened her eyes.

She was there. _Beth was there._ Right in front of her. Close enough to touch. She turned slowly toward Sarah, a replay of the memory scarred into Sarah’s brain. Her breath caught as their eyes fixed on each other’s.

It was one thing to imagine it -- the ability to go back, to relive a moment in time. It was another thing to see it there in front of her. Every detail, even the ones she’d forgotten. The look in Beth’s eyes, almost like she expected Sarah to be there. And in a blink, the moment was passing. Beth was walking away. It was going to happen. Just the way it had happened before. Just the way it had happened in Sarah’s memory, in her dreams, again and again and again.

_“Beth!”_

It came out as a shriek. She lunged forward, desperate. _She would change this._

She caught Beth’s wrist.

The train passed.

The train passed, and Beth was still there.

Sarah felt it in her grip, Beth’s skin, the bones in her fingers -- she had weight, she had texture, she was _real._ Sarah started crying, sharp and sudden, a punch to the gut.

“Beth,” she choked. _You’re alive,_ she wanted to say.

Beth was completely still. She’d barely resisted when Sarah grabbed her. She cocked her head over her shoulder and spoke the last two words Sarah had expected to hear.

“Hey, Sarah.”

 

* * *

 

They were walking now. At some point, they’d started walking. Beth slightly ahead, Sarah’s legs moving on their own. Through the storm in her head, she could hear Beth’s voice, but she couldn’t make out the words. With some effort, she managed to reach out and grab hold of one of a million thoughts.

“You… knew me,” she said in a daze. Beth had known her name, she remembered.

“Yeah. In another timeline.” Beth stopped walking, turned around to face Sarah. _Just like..._

She jumped when Beth’s hand touched her shoulder.

“Sarah.”

Beth’s thumb slid back and forth across the shoulder of Sarah’s jacket, a sign of a fond relationship Sarah had never known. Somehow, she found herself missing it.

“I know this is a lot to take in,” Beth said softly. “But by stopping me at the train station, you’ve already changed the past. Soon, you’re going to jump into a new future, and we need to make sure it’ll be safe. So, I need you to focus and listen to what I’m telling you, okay?”

 _Focus._ Sarah could do that. Roll with the punches, just like she had with all the other shit.

Only, this wasn’t like before. This was _completely fucking insane._

Still. Her sisters were depending on her.

“Okay.”

Something rang from inside Beth’s purse, putting a halt to their conversation. Beth reached in and pulled out the familiar pink clone phone.

“I’m guessing this is for you.”

She answered it, putting it on speaker.

“Hey, Cosima.”

“Holy shit! Beth! Holy shit.”

“Beth…” Alison was on the line too. Even over the phone, Sarah could hear the tears in her voice. “I can’t believe it. There are just so many things I want to say to you.”

“I know,” Beth sighed. “There’ll be time for that later, okay?”

“I think Beth’s got a lot she needs to tell us,” Sarah added.

Beth nodded gratefully, then motioned for Sarah to follow as she continued walking.

 

* * *

 

Beth’s story went like this: in the original timeline, she never jumped. Together with Sarah and the others, they fought against DYAD, Topside, Neolution, anyone and everyone who sought to control them. Only… Beth and MK dug too deep. They found evidence of more Ledas, their identities scrubbed from the official record, being held captive and experimented on in underground labs. The files they found only described a ‘force’ or ‘energy’ within them. Nothing to suggest anyone knew about their _true_ ability, but enough to know it was something powerful.

“And, of course, what do you think they wanted to do with that power?” Beth asked.

“Weaponize it,” Cosima said. It was nothing they hadn’t seen before.

“Bingo. That was their plan anyway. Fuck knows how far they got with it.”

They turned a corner, and Sarah spotted the familiar row of apartments at the end of the street, finally realizing where they were headed. She hadn’t thought to ask.

“Mika was careful, obviously, but she underestimated these people. We both did. Not too long after that, Ledas started disappearing. The three of you were gone before we’d even realized it. Mika and I, we ran, tried to hide away as many of our sisters as we could before anyone else could get to them. We only managed two.”

“So, you had four then,” Sarah noted. Enough to make the jump.

“Yeah. We had four.”

“Sorry, hold on one second,” Alison said. “I think this is Helena calling.”

Beth stopped dead, turning back to Sarah. Her face darkened.

“Helena?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, cautious. “She’s the fourth.”

Beth shook her head gravely.

“She killed my partner. In my timeline. So, I… I put a bullet in her head.”

Sarah hung her head. She felt sick. This was the reality before Beth changed it? Two lives lost. Art. _Her sister._ Because Beth had died, they had lived. _Because Beth had died…_

A shiver ran down Sarah’s spine. She quickly pushed the thought out of her head.

“I’m sorry that happened,” she said. “But Helena’s one of us.”

“She’s right, Beth,” Cosima added. “I trust her with my life.”

“Those people, they used her,” Sarah said. “Her whole life, just--”

Beth waved her hand, interrupting.

“I know. I get it. I’m not proud, okay?” She sighed deeply. “Even if we can go back, change the past, we still have to live with what we’ve done.”

She ran a hand through her hair, took a deep breath, then continued walking.

“Hello, sestras,” Helena cut in.

Even in a situation like this, Sarah couldn’t help but smile fondly at the sound of her sister’s voice.

“Oi, meathead.”

“Hey, bub,” Cosima said.

“Hello, Helena,” Beth said. “Good to meet you.”

Sarah laid a hand on Beth’s shoulder, appreciative. Beth nodded.

“Nice to meet you, Beth Childs,” Helena said.

“Alright,” Sarah said, eager to move on. “So, the other two Ledas, the ones you jumped to the past with. Who were they?”

Beth shook her head.

“If we had the time, I’d tell you all about them, but they didn’t even know they were clones before Mika and I showed up at their doorsteps. We don’t need to involve them any more than we already have. They can’t help like you can.”

Sarah still wasn’t sure how they were meant to help beyond saving Beth’s life but decided to let Beth work her way to that.

“So, going off of the information we dug up, we ended up making our first jump to the past. I think we were all too busy trying to work out what had happened to really change anything, but once we were back in the present, we decided to try again. See if we could actually change the past. Mika, she had her own ideas, but I already had a plan.

Sarah swallowed.

“That’s when you decided to--”

“Kill myself,” Beth said flatly. “Yeah.”

Sarah stopped short at the bottom of the stairs to Beth’s apartment, watching Beth walk up to her front door. She wasn’t sure what to say, and it seemed like the others on the line weren’t sure either.

“I thought I was a liability to all of you,” Beth explained. “I just… made so many mistakes. I thought maybe without me, you’d stand a chance of stopping it. Guess I was naive.”

“But there had to be another way,” Sarah choked. “Beth, you--”

Beth paused with her key in the lock.

“Do I really have to say it?” she asked. She sounded exhausted. “I _wanted_ to jump.”

Sarah had been hoping desperately for some other reason, any easy excuse for why she had done it. The reality stung, hot and sharp.

“Beth…”

“Please, Sarah. Let’s just go.”

Beth turned the key and stepped into her apartment. Very quickly, she was swallowed into a hug.

“Beth! You came back.”

 _MK._ Another dead woman standing in front of Sarah like nothing had happened.

“Mika, hey,” Beth chuckled, sounding nearly as surprised as Sarah was. “Didn’t think you’d still be here.”

“I didn’t know where else to go. I was so worried.”

Mika’s eyes widened as she caught sight of Sarah over Beth’s shoulder. She jumped back, startled.

“It’s alright, Mika,” Beth said calmly. “She’s with me.”

She motioned Sarah closer. Slowly, Sarah climbed the steps, feeling the familiar, crushing guilt in her chest as she approached Mika.

“I don’t understand,” Mika said. “Why is Sarah here?”

“Hey, MK,” Cosima said. “We’re here too. This is Cosima. Alison and Helena are also on the line.”

MK shot Beth a panicked look at the mention of Helena’s name.

“MK?” Alison said. “Oh my god.”

“Hello,” Helena said.

“H-hi,” MK said weakly.

Sarah opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t get any sound to come out. Beth and now Mika, alive right in front of her eyes. It was all too much. Beth eyed her suspiciously, noting her reaction.

“They came back too, Mika,” she explained. “From the future.”

Mika’s eyes darted around the room, processing.

“That would make this timeline D,” she said.

“Yeah,” Beth said. “Guess so.”

“But why?” Mika asked, turning to Sarah now. “What happened?”

“We’ll get to that, I promise,” Beth said. “But before they explain, I think we should do your idea.”

“The video message!” Mika buzzed, clapping her hands together. “Of course. I’ll set it up.”

Mika scampered over to the kitchen, pulling her backpack off as she went.

“Video message?” Sarah asked.

“We’re gonna record a message to ourselves,” Beth said. “Once we jump back to the present, we’ll be leaving our old selves behind, right? They won’t remember any of this. So we arm them with as much information as we can: everything on DYAD, Topside, Neolution. The idea is to bring them all down before they have any idea what’s inside us.”

“Y’think that’ll work?” Sarah asked, incredulous. MK’s message had made it seem like Beth would have all the answers, but looking her in the eye now, she seemed just as confused and uncertain as any of them.

“I don’t know,” Beth sighed. “But it’s the best plan we’ve got.”

“I think it could work,” Cosima said after a beat.

“You should all record one too,” Beth said. “This needs to be convincing.”

“I do not have anything for recording,” Helena pointed out.

“Right,” Sarah said. “Shit.”

“I will write letter.”

“A letter?” Sarah asked. “Will that be enough?”

“I think so. Helena from this time, she was very… fragile. Many doubts. I will know what to say to her.”

“Alright,” Sarah said, trying to swallow her own doubts.

Beth and Sarah stood by as the others found what they needed. Sarah, desperate to untangle the stress knot in her stomach, grabbed a seat on the couch. No use. She couldn’t stop shaking.

“Was she okay?” Beth whispered. She stared over at Mika in the kitchen tapping away on her laptop. “Without me, I mean. In your timeline. Please tell me she was okay.”

Sarah felt her lip start to quiver. She struggled to find the words, any way to say it that would make it not horrible. Beth took a deep breath, shuddering as she caught a glimpse of Sarah’s face.

“Doesn’t matter, right?” she asked. A tear trickled down her cheek. “We’re gonna change it.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, and suddenly, she was crying too. She placed a hand on Beth’s arm. “Think we already have.”

“I didn’t tell her, Sarah. About what I was planning to do.”

“Hey,” Sarah said softly, drawing Beth’s eyes to her. “We changed that too.”

“Yeah,” Beth said. “Still gonna have to tell her though, huh?”

Sarah nodded. If they were going to tell their story, she didn’t really see any way around it.

“Give me a minute with her, okay?” Beth asked.

“Of course.”

Sarah watched her walk to the kitchen on shaky legs.

“Hey, I’m ready,” Cosima said. “Anyone there?”

“Just you and me, Cos.”

Sarah sighed, dropping her head into her hands.

“I dunno. I wanna believe this’ll work, but I’ve got a bad feelin’.”

“I think we’re all scared, Sarah. Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.”

“Yeah.”

She heard Mika wail in agony, a cry from somewhere deep in her gut. She looked up to see Beth pulling her into her arms.

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Beth said, motioning Sarah over. “Ready.”

Sarah stood from the couch and went to join the others, watching as Mika desperately wiped her tears. When she reached her, almost instinctively, she threw an arm around her shoulder.

“Hey, Mika.”

She needed to feel she was there, real and solid. She needed to know she could still be saved.

She didn’t expect Mika to lean into it. Another relationship Sarah never had a real chance to know.

“Hello, Sarah.”

Mika turned her head toward her, putting on a brave smile through the tears. She scanned Sarah’s face, seemed to find something in it.

“This is all very overwhelming, I know,” she said. “But we’ll make it through this. Because we’re a team.”

Beth turned, flashing Mika what looked like a knowing smile.

“We’re a team,” Sarah repeated, matching Mika’s brave smile with her own.

“Love you guys,” Cosima said. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Okay,” Mika said, nodding her head determinedly.

She leaned forward and hit a key on the laptop, starting the recording.

“This is MK. I’m here with Beth and Sarah. On the phone are Cosima, Alison, and Helena.”

Mika sucked in a deep breath, exhaled. Beth nodded reassuringly, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“What we’re about to tell you will sound impossible.”


	3. Glass Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/KzP7vpK.png)  
> 

**TIMELINE D**

The city lights burned bright under Rachel’s gaze, almost defiant against the night sky. How long would this last, her looking down from above? Everything she’d helped to build, _her legacy,_ soon to be nothing more than dust in the wind.

“Ms. Duncan,” she heard from behind her. Nothing worth turning around for. “Detective Beth Childs is here.”

Of course she was. Rachel laughed, a small, sharp puff of air. It was all she could do to quell the urge to throw this man through the plate glass, watch him hurtle to the ground, snap every bone in his body.

“Send her in,” she said. Calm. Rehearsed.

Beth Childs, here to gloat, she imagined. To watch and laugh as Rachel Duncan fell from her tower. How had it come to this? It seemed some sort of cruel cosmic joke. Taken apart, piece by piece, by lesser versions of herself. Outmaneuvered at every turn. Beth Childs, Sarah Manning, always a step ahead. Like they knew. Like they knew _everything._

“It’s over, Rachel.”

She caught Beth’s reflection in the window, standing tall. Victorious.

“Is it?” Rachel asked, though her heart was hardly in it. The lights below were a thousand flickering flames threatening to engulf her. Reluctantly, she turned to face the detective. _Never show weakness._

“You’re done,” Beth said, staring Rachel dead in the eye. “You tell your bosses. Either the DYAD Group shuts down all operations --every experiment, every facility-- or we go public.”

Rachel smiled disbelievingly.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try us,” Beth spat. “We have enough to bury you. If you’re lucky, you’ll be out of prison by the time you turn eighty.”

Rachel gripped the edge of her desk, nails dragging against cold steel.

“An ultimatum.”

“That’s right. It’s an easy decision. You can retire, move to Europe, travel the world, whatever. It’s more than you deserve.”

Rachel’s jaw clenched. This was what she’d been reduced to. Taking orders from Beth Childs.

“You have one week,” Beth said. Rachel laughed.

“Do you have any idea of the size--”

" _One week,"_  she said again, more forcefully. She took a step forward, eyes boring into Rachel’s. “Or we pull the trigger.”

Rachel’s upper lip twitched, baring her teeth.

“You think you can be free of this?” she hissed. “You’re an experiment. A prototype. Just the first step on the road to something better.”

Beth’s face softened. Oh, this was worse, so much worse.

“You know, I honestly feel sorry for you, Rachel.”

Rachel felt her nails crack against the underside of the desk.

“Goodbye,” Beth said. Nothing smug in it, nothing malicious. Just… _pity._

The white of Beth’s hand caught Rachel’s eye as she turned to leave.

_stop_

Some unknown instinct pushed its way out from within her. Her hand shot out and grasped Beth’s wrist.

Her mind shattered.

_“You poor thing.”_

The world warped around her, and she was back, returned to her own personal nightmare. She’d only just been torn from her childhood home and brought here, to the cold and empty hallways of DYAD. Towering over her, one of the countless strangers who had deigned to think they had anything of worth to offer her, a young child who’d just lost her parents.

_“I know this might not be what you want to want to hear right now, but you’re actually a very lucky girl. You’ll never be alone here, Rachel.”_

Then, in an instant, it was gone. Beth jumped back. Her hand shot to the pistol at her side, hovered over it. She was trembling.

The power had shifted, and Rachel felt it. It was written all over Beth’s face. Whatever that was, Beth didn’t want Rachel to know about it. Seemingly almost enough to kill over.

“Are you going to shoot me, Detective?”

She watched as Beth slowly lowered her shaking hand.

“Don’t touch me again,” Beth said. She turned and walked away in a hurry, taking one last look back on the way out the door. Rachel smiled with renewed confidence.

She looked down to her hand, still throbbing to the rhythm of Beth’s pulse. She had seen a glimpse of her own past. No, she hadn’t just seen it, she had _relived_ it. And somehow, she wasn’t surprised. Like she had known it would happen. Some tiny spark in her mind told her it would happen. A ghost of a memory. An echo.

She reached for the intercom button on her phone.

“Martin.”

“Yes, Ms. Duncan.”

“Pack your bags. We’ll be flying to Warsaw first thing in the morning.”

 

* * *

 

 _Warsaw._ Home to one of the remaining few DYAD facilities still unknown to Beth Childs and the others. A building that held half a dozen Leda clones in the hopes of developing a cure. That had been the initial intent, anyway. Somehow, Beth and her ilk had beaten them to that as well. Now, this was all DYAD had to show for their efforts, a group of women sick and dying, not from the disease, but as a result of their own heavy-handed “treatments”. The protocol was to _terminate,_  but Rachel had countermanded the order. Beth Childs didn’t know they existed, and that meant they had value. Rachel was beginning to think now that they were worth more to her than she could have imagined.

Her hand found the switch. A light in the ceiling flickered and hummed to life, casting a sickly glow around the small room. There, a battered examination table, and on it, another woman with her face. Not a single hair on her head, no eyebrows or eyelashes. Her skin was a nauseating pale yellow, covered in a thick film of sweat. Her eyes were closed, asleep but not peacefully. She was shuddering, mumbling indecipherable words. Rachel found the band around her wrist and the sequence of numbers and letters written on it. _4KR919._  No name.

Rachel knew she should feel something seeing her like this, a tightness in her chest or the rise of bile in her stomach. She knew she should feel something. She stood silent for a moment and tried.

No use. Not that it mattered. She was here for one reason.

A woman with her face. Her DNA. Perhaps, then, she could trigger it again.

She took the woman’s wrist, the skin hot and slick in her hand. Her pulse was weak, but it was there.

_Nothing._

She gripped tighter in frustration. The woman let out a groan, pained and ragged.

 _“Save... her…”_ she rasped.

Rachel closed her eyes, refocused. Perhaps physical contact wasn’t enough. She recalled the memory she had relived, the look on the stranger’s face, the anger she’d felt as he talked down to her.

She shivered as her blood ran cold. Something shifted deep inside her mind.

She smiled.


	4. Hangover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/vtGpvci.png)  
> 

**TIMELINE E**

  
Sarah blinked and felt the world shift. When she opened her eyes, she was somewhere else. One second, Beth’s apartment, the next…

_where am_

Where was she?

Before she’d had a chance to determine anything, she felt herself lose balance and begin to stumble backwards. She reached forward in an attempt to grab hold of what was in front of her (a desk?), but her hand slipped, sending her tumbling to the floor in a heap. A pen rolled from her hand and onto the hardwood.

“Shit,” she muttered.

“Sarah?”

She heard footsteps approaching, then felt herself being pulled up by her arm. She blinked, trying to get a good look at the person above her. Her vision was hazy, but she could make out her own face staring back at her and the familiar brown hair that fell just below the shoulders.

“Beth?”

“Yeah, hey,” Beth said. “It’s me.”

Beth set her down nearby, somewhere soft. A bed, she realized.

“You okay?” Beth asked.

“Yeah,” Sarah managed. She wasn’t hurt, but she hadn’t expected this oppressive feeling currently filling her head, nothing like when she’d jumped to the past.

She cast her eyes around the room.

It looked to be a small apartment, sparsely furnished. Two beds, one chair and a desk, nothing on it but a compact laptop, notepad and a pair of binoculars. In the far corner, a dent in the drywall, cracks fanning out from the center. It looked like someone had driven their fist into it.

“I’m guessing you’re back,” Beth said as she watched Sarah try to make sense of her surroundings. She glanced at the watch on her wrist.

 _Back._ It seemed a weird word to use, as though Sarah had ever been here before. To this apartment, this timeline.

“Yeah,” Sarah said, swallowing. Something about this felt wrong, and not just the haze in her mind or the unfamiliar apartment.

“Wait here a second,” Beth said, walking off through what looked like a door to the kitchen. Sarah took another look around, finally noticing all the empty booze bottles tucked into the corner behind the bed. Suddenly, it hit her.

“Shit, I’m pissed, aren’t I?” she asked, and she could hear the slur in her words. God, she was wasted. Not exactly what she needed right now.

“Yeah, sorry,” Beth said. She emerged from the kitchen holding a steaming mug of something. “Here, I made you some tea.”

In a daze, Sarah took the mug and brought it to her lips. The tea was scalding hot, and she didn’t care. It was the only familiar thing she had, the only thing to keep her from losing her mind. She hated to admit it, but even Beth felt wrong here, a living reminder that this wasn’t her reality. This wasn’t home.

Beth watched quietly as Sarah drank. The silence was terrifying, filled with questions Sarah didn’t want the answers to and answers it seemed Beth didn’t want to give.

“Something went wrong, Sarah.”

Sarah nodded, biting down on the inside of her lip until she tasted copper. She gripped the mug tighter, dragging her nails across the sides.

“It’s Rachel,” Beth continued, and Sarah would laugh if she had the energy. “I don’t know how it could have happened, but she must have found out. About what we can do.”

“Rachel doesn’t scare me,” Sarah said instinctively, though she couldn’t keep the wobble out of her voice.

“She should,” Beth said firmly. “We’re being _hunted._ I don’t know how else to put it. She’s using every resource at her disposal to track us down and bring us in.”

She swallowed, her face darkening.

“Sarah, I have no idea where the others are.”

Hunted? How had it ended up this way? This was supposed to have worked. Beth was supposed to have fixed things. That was the whole point of this. Sarah wanted to throw the tea in her face. She wanted to scream. More than anything, she wanted to see her kid again.

“So, what’s this then?” she asked instead, taking another look around the room. Thick blinds covered the windows. The tea had eased some of the dizziness, and she managed to stand on shaky legs and make her way over to them, lifting and peeking out through one of the corners. A sliver of the sun was just barely visible on the horizon. In the distance, the familiar tip of the CN Tower. “We’re still in Toronto?”

“Exactly where we need to be. She expects us to run and hide with our tails between our legs. We may be laying low for now, but I haven’t given up.”

Sarah turned back to Beth, hopeful.

“Y’got a plan?”

Beth nodded, the corner of her lip curling into a small smirk.

“I may have found one of DYAD’s holding facilities. Been scoping out possible locations in the city, you know, heavily-guarded buildings without a proper paper trail. Anyway, I recognized a couple of the security guards at this one.”

“And you think they could be keepin’ Ledas there?”

“I think there’s a good chance, yeah.”

Sarah returned to her seat, letting out a huge breath as she sat. She pored over Beth’s face, tried to make her real in her mind. She still couldn’t believe any of this was real. She couldn’t believe this was Beth sitting in front of her. Then again, maybe it was that disconnect keeping her from going insane.

“But, Sarah,” Beth said, placing a hand on Sarah’s knee. “If there’s anything you can remember, any information that wasn’t in the video message that will help us find the others…”

Sarah shook her head in an attempt to clear the drunken fog, casting her mind back over the whirlwind of events of the past few… God, she couldn’t even say _‘hours’,_ could she? The video message, the conversations with Mika, with Beth, with Cosima and the others over the phone, the walk to Beth’s apartment, the train station, the time jump, the bridge…

“The bridge,” Sarah muttered. She’d nearly forgotten after everything that happened. “Alison said we should meet under the bridge if we got separated.”

“Bridge?” Beth asked, a flush of excitement rising to her face.

“It’s where we made the jump to the past. I dunno the name of it, but I can get us there.”

“Sarah!” Beth exclaimed, clapping her on the back. “This is huge! You have no idea what it’s been like, how useless I’ve felt not knowing where our sisters are.”

Sarah saw the tiny glimmer of hope in Beth’s eyes, and all the pain surrounding it.

“It should be getting dark soon. We’ll head out then. It’s safer at night.”

Sarah nodded, recognizing she was in no condition to do anything but follow Beth’s lead. She looked over to the desk against the far wall, where she’d found herself when she jumped back to the present. She remembered the pen that had fallen out of her hand.

She stood and stepped toward the desk. Her eyes fell to the notepad and the unfinished message written on it.

**_BETH I_ **

The ink trailed from the bottom of the ‘I’, down the length of the paper. That’s when she must have fallen.

“What’s this?” Beth asked, having joined her by her side.

“Dunno,” Sarah answered honestly. “Looks like I was, or _she_ was tryin’ to tell you somethin’. The other Sarah, I mean.”

 _The other Sarah._ She’d said it like it was something that made sense. And for a brief moment, she felt it, the weight of being trapped in a reality that wasn’t hers, in a _body_ that wasn’t hers. It was terrifying.

“Beth, I,” Beth read aloud. Her face twisted into an expression Sarah didn’t recognize.

“I don’t get it,” Sarah said. “You were just in the other room. If she wanted to tell you somethin’, why didn’t she just tell you?”

Beth sighed deeply, ran a hand through her hair.

“The truth is that she wouldn’t talk to me. When everything happened, she tried to run with Siobhan, Felix, and Kira. I couldn’t let her do that.”

Sarah felt her stomach churn at the mention of her family.

“Are they--”

“They’re safe, as far as I know,” Beth said. Sarah’s heart jumped. So, S was alive too in this timeline. “And that was the point, right? If she had gone with them, she’d be putting them all in danger. I made her leave her daughter behind.”

“You did what you had to,” Sarah said. As much as she hated to admit it, and as much as she’d tried to protect her, she knew there were times when she’d been a liability to Kira.

“I don’t know,” Beth said, shaking her head. “I’ve spent a long time wondering whether it was the right thing to do. Anyway, she didn’t see it like that. She blamed me for it, for all of this, being cooped up here like prisoners. Maybe she was right to. I just… got so consumed with wanting to fix this. Reuniting our sisters and undoing this. I couldn’t see anything else.”

She drew a deep breath. Sarah lay a hand on her shoulder, the only comfort she could think to offer.

“She was a wreck, Sarah. She started drinking, doing drugs. I came back one night and she was gone. I was out for a day and a half looking for her. Finally found her passed out in an alley, half-dead.”

“You serious?”

It really did feel as though they were talking about someone else. Even at her lowest point, Sarah had never gotten that bad.

Beth nodded. Sarah’s eyes shifted back to the message.

**_BETH I_ **

“Maybe she was tryin’ to say she was sorry? Maybe she realized you were only doin’ what you thought was right.”

“Maybe,” Beth sighed. “But it wasn’t just about Kira or hiding ourselves away. I think she was scared of what would happen to her when _you_ came back. There was nothing I could say to make that fear go away.”

A chill ran down Sarah’s spine. In all the craziness, it was something she hadn’t stopped to consider. There had been another version of Sarah with her own consciousness, her own memories. And now…

“Anyway, no use worrying about it,” Beth said, crossing the room to the window. “What matters is that you’re here now and that we finally stand a chance at fixing this.”

She carefully lifted a corner of the blinds.

“It’s dark now. We should move.”

She turned back to Sarah, scanned her face.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. The tea and harrowing conversation had actually done a decent job of sobering her up.

Beth grabbed a piece of clothing from the corner of the floor and tossed it to Sarah. A dark hoodie.

“Put that on. We walk quickly and keep our heads down, okay?”

Sarah nodded, pulling the sweatshirt on and watched as Beth did the same with her coat. She saw the thick bags under Beth’s eyes. This was what had become of her life, constantly having to look over her shoulder, forced into hiding with a woman who wanted nothing to do with her.

“Hey,” Sarah said softly. “You doin’ alright?”

Beth let out a sad little laugh.

“I’m not planning on killing myself if that’s what you’re asking.”

It wasn’t why Sarah had asked, although she had to admit it had crossed her mind. As she spoke, Beth reached under her mattress and pulled something out. A small handgun.

“It’s been tough, Sarah, but I feel like I finally have something worth living for.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Sarah asked, swallowing nervously.

Beth tucked the gun into her coat before turning to Sarah with a look that made her blood run cold.

“Revenge.”

With that, she clicked open the lock, opened the front door, and stepped out into the night.


	5. Before the Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/BSCAO6q.png)   
> 

“Sir, you should take a look at this.”

_help_

Alison blinked against the bright fluorescents, a sudden, shock change from the dim lighting of her craft room. Just a second ago, she’d been at home on her laptop, and now...

“Where… where am I?” she murmured.

The first thing she felt was the weight of something pressing cold and heavy against her scalp. The next thing she felt was the tightness around her wrists as she tried to reach for it. She looked down to find herself dressed in brown scrubs, her arms, legs, and torso strapped down to what looked like an examination chair.

“What is this?!”

“Subject appears to be experiencing some memory loss.”

The man sitting to her right was dressed in a lab coat and looked to be in his fifties or sixties. He swiveled in his stool to face a younger man sitting behind a monitor in the corner of the room.

“She was right,” he said.

“Who are you?” Alison asked, trying to keep calm and failing. “What am I doing here?”

“Mrs. Hendrix, my name is Dr. Nealon,” he said calmly, almost condescendingly. “Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

She caught sight of her reflection in the glass of a medical supply cabinet, her head covered in dozens of wires and electrodes, her scalp shaved clean.

“I’m not telling you a damn thing until you let me out of this chair!” she screamed. She tugged violently at her restraints.

“Please calm down, Mrs. Hendrix. I assure you, you’ll be free to return to your room just as soon as you answer a few questions.”

“Room? What room?!”

The doctor frowned, running his eyes along her face.

“My apologies,” he said. “It seems I’ve underestimated the extent of your memory loss. You’re currently in a DYAD research facility. Are you at all familiar with DYAD?”

“Yes,” she snapped. “All too familiar.”

“Good,” he said, nodding. “We’re holding you here because there’s a bit of an… abnormality in your DNA. It’s important that we find out what exactly it is.”

An abnormality in her DNA. Did that mean they knew?

“You’re holding me prisoner,” she clarified.

“It isn’t how I’d prefer to do things, but it’s out of my hands. Orders from above, you understand.”

“Who?” she asked, desperate. “Leekie? Rachel?”

The doctor offered a small nod in response.

“Ms. Duncan regrets that she wasn’t able to be here in person.”

Alison’s hands curled into fists, restraints tugging at the skin of her wrists. Of course it was Rachel. It could only have been Rachel.

“If she lay a finger on my children…”

“Oscar and Gemma are in good hands,” he said, and hearing him say their names sent a chill through her body.

“Good hands,” she repeated.

“Not with us,” he said, sensing her concern. “They’ve been taken in by a loving family and are perfectly safe, I can promise you.”

“What?” she said, heat rising in her chest. “A loving family? Where is my husband?!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Hendrix,” he said, though his voice and expression were unchanged. “As your monitor, I’m afraid your husband simply knew too much.”

“No,” she said. Her stomach felt like it was tearing itself apart. “No. Don’t you dare.”

“I’m very sorry,” he said again, like he thought she hadn’t heard him. Like it was meant to make anything better.

Alison screamed. She screamed and flailed against her restraints until they wore her skin raw, and it was no use at all.

“I believe I’ve answered your questions,” the doctor said, growing impatient. “Now if you would please answer a few of my own? Can you tell me the last thing you remember?”

“Let me out!” she screamed, her voice tearing at the walls of her throat.

“Please answer the question, Mrs. Hendrix.”

“I don’t know!” she lied. She remembered every last moment of her trip to the past, clear as day, but there was no way in hell she would tell DYAD that.

The doctor turned his back to her, exchanging a look with the man behind the monitor. The other man shook his head.

“Do you know where any of the other Ledas might be?” Nealon asked, turning to her again. “Cosima? Helena? Beth?”

She remembered they’d agreed to meet under the bridge should they get separated. She also knew that under no circumstances could she let that information out. She swallowed before giving her answer.

“I don’t know.”

It was a small relief, at least, knowing her sisters were out there somewhere and not in here. She allowed some small hope into her heart that maybe they would come for her, that they could go back, erase this horrible reality and let her see her husband and children safe again.

Like before, Dr. Nealon turned to the man. The man shook his head. Nealon turned back, sighing.

“We know you’re not being honest with us,” he said. “It’s a shame. You’ve been so cooperative lately.”

“I’m not telling you anything,” she spat.

“You will,” he said, a smug smile crossing his face. “But Ms. Duncan expected you’d be resistant.”

He stood, walked to the door, and pulled it open. A guard entered the room behind him. Alison’s eyes fell to the gun on his belt.

“Let’s take Mrs. Hendrix back to her room,” Nealon said.

Alison, desperate to be anywhere but here, didn’t fight as her restraints were slowly and systematically removed, or even as they cuffed her hands behind her back. They led her out into the hallway, a long stretch of white in front of her, tight and claustrophobic with no windows. They turned a corner into a smaller hallway lined with thick metal doors, each with a deadbolt and electronic lock. The guard stopped at the one second from the end and flipped open the bolt. After flashing his keycard over the lock, the door clicked open, and he gestured Alison inside.

The room, even more so than the hallways, was blindingly white, illuminated by the sharp fluorescents thickly encased in the ceiling. There was a modest bed in the corner, neatly made. Against the opposite wall, a bulky metal chair tucked under a small desk which held a stack of paper, a set of crayons, and a few tattered paperbacks. Lining the wall were several drawings, landscapes mostly, done in crayon. In the far corner of the room, a metal toilet. By the ceiling, behind thick glass, she could make out the reflection of a camera lens. All in all, the room couldn’t have been more than ten feet by ten feet.

Alison attempted to digest the reality of what she was seeing, standing in stunned silence as her cuffs were removed.

“Take some time to consider your options,” Dr. Nealon said. “Things will be much easier for you if you tell us what you know.”

“You tell Rachel,” she said, turning to face him. “When I get out of here, I’m going to kill her.”

Dr. Nealon said nothing. With a motion to the guard, the door shut with a heavy metal clunk. Alison was locked in.

She fell against the wall, throwing her hands over her face as she sank to the floor. How had this gone so wrong? How had they screwed up the past so bad that she’d ended up here? None of this made sense.

“Ali?”

Alison jumped at the sound of a woman’s voice, whipping her head around to pinpoint the source. She quickly found it, the small vent by the foot of her bed, and crawled over to it. Peering through, she saw a room identical to hers and a woman with a face identical to hers, her head also clean-shaven.

“Who are you?” Alison asked.

“So it’s true, huh?” the woman replied, hurt in her voice. “You really did forget. It’s me, Krystal.”

“Krystal?” Alison asked, stunned. “Krystal Goderitch?”

“Yeah. I’m like, your neighbor. That’s what we called each other anyway.”

So they’d gotten to Krystal too. Just how many Ledas were they holding here?

“I’m sorry, I just don’t remember,” Alison said. “I really can’t explain it.”

“Because you’re from another timeline, right?”

Alison’s stomach lurched. How could Krystal know? Unless…

“I told you that?” Alison realized. She eyed the camera in the corner of the room. “I told _them?”_

“Yeah,” Krystal said. “Oh, but it wasn’t like you just _told_ them. I mean, it’s not like you wanted to. But it’s hard in here. You have to do what you can to stay sane, you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Alison answered honestly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you got us moved into these rooms, for one thing.”

“Rooms?” Alison scoffed. “They’re prison cells.”

Saying it out loud made her want to cry and never stop, but she had to believe the others would come. Any other possibility was just… No, there was no other possibility.

“They’re much nicer than what the other girls get,” Krystal said, seeming almost offended by the suggestion.

“How many others are in here?”

“I dunno. They don’t really let us out much.”

Alison shut her eyes, tried to steady her breathing.

“Oh, and the art stuff!” Krystal exclaimed. “You really like that stuff!”

Alison took another look at the drawings on the walls, the only tangible thing her other self had left behind.

“I sold out my sisters for paper and crayons,” she said, burying her face in her hands.

“Well, they said they didn’t want to give us anything we could use to hurt the guards.”

“Or ourselves,” Alison muttered. Krystal didn’t seem to have much to say to that. “So you believed me then? About going back in time?”

“I mean, it seemed kinda out there, but if it’s not true, that’d mean you’re crazy, right?”

Alison could hear Krystal’s voice start to break as she spoke.

“And I don’t think I could handle it in here if you were crazy, Ali.”

Alison realized it then, how hard Krystal was fighting to keep her head above the water, and how far they must have pushed Alison, the other Alison, to make her break.

“Are we in Hell?” she asked, voice shaking. Her face stung. Warm tears fell down her face.

“Hey,” Krystal whispered. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

“I’m sorry,” Alison said, and she meant it. She had no right to drag Krystal down with her.

“Here,” Krystal said, and Alison watched a rolled-up sheet of paper poke through the vent into her room. She pulled it out and unfurled it.

Another drawing in crayon, bright green hills with a small sliver of yellow sunlight peeking out from above them. Her eyes drifted downward, to the words written in pink at the bottom.

_It’s always darkest before the dawn._


	6. The Long Way Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/AC3Ub03.png)   
> 

Cosima’s vision snapped to black. She felt something envelop her, warm and comforting. Her eyes fluttered open.

_ love you _

The room around her was unfamiliar but not unpleasant, softly lit by the sunlight streaming through the thin curtains over the windows, small houseplants resting on the sill. This was someone’s home.

She found herself sitting on a couch, and with that realization came the realization that she wasn’t alone. She recognized the source of the warmth now, the arms drawn tight around her back in an embrace. Slowly, she pulled away and looked into the face of the person in front of her.

“What…? Delphine?”

Delphine blinked, sending a tear down her cheek, and seemingly not the first, her eyes red and swollen. When Cosima had spoken, she noticed her face twist into something pained.

“Hello, Cosima,” she whispered.

“You’re safe,” Cosima said, allowing herself a sigh of relief. She had no idea where she was or what had happened, but this was something she could latch onto.

On instinct, she reached up to Delphine’s face and brushed away the tear with the pad of her thumb. As she made contact, another, unfamiliar instinct within her made her pull away.

“Where are we?” she asked, pushing herself to standing. 

Behind the couch, a dining table had been left uncleared after a meal, two candles left burning. A framed photo caught her eye. She made her way to the end table at the far side of the couch and picked it up. It was Delphine standing under a stone archway next to a woman with Cosima’s face and glasses, but whose hair had been cropped short. She raised a hand to her own head and found it matched hers. 

“Cosima,” Delphine said. “There’s a lot I have to tell you.”

“Yeah,” Cosima said, setting the photo down. “Yeah, okay.”

She rejoined Delphine on the couch, settling, maybe unconsciously, slightly farther away this time. Delphine chewed at her bottom lip, silently weighing something over in her mind.

“Don’t tell me,” Cosima said in a nervous attempt to cut the tension. “I screwed up time and accidentally brought back the Macarena.”

“Rachel knows,” Delphine said.

Cosima’s heart fell into her stomach.

“What?”

Delphine explained what had happened, how Rachel had taken over the Leda project and subsequently torn it up by its roots, ordering every Leda clone be found and taken into DYAD’s custody. 

“Based on what you told me, there’s only one reason she could be doing this.”

“She knows,” Cosima agreed. “Holy shit, she knows. But how? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s impossible to say,” Delphine said, shaking her head. “Any small change you made to the timeline would have had a million unforeseen consequences.”

Cosima heard the sincerity in Delphine’s voice as she spoke. She had bought into it, the insane reality of time travel, even though Cosima knew there couldn’t have been any concrete evidence of it. Delphine had trusted her wholeheartedly.

“But I don’t get it,” Cosima said. “We live here? Where are we?”

“Seattle.”

“Seattle,” Cosima repeated, confused. “Does DYAD have people in Seattle?”

She had done enough digging into DYAD to know that they didn’t, but maybe things were different in this timeline. Maybe, hopefully, this wasn’t what it looked like.

Her fears only deepened as she felt Delphine take her hands.

“Cosima, you have to understand how dangerous it is for us right now. Rachel knew that I would fight her. She tried to force me out, and I knew I couldn’t stop her. With what little power I had, there was only one thing I could think to do.”

“You broke me out,” Cosima croaked.

“Yes.”

“Who else were they keeping there?” she asked, voice rapidly rising with panic.

“Five others,” Delphine said. “Alison Hendrix was one of them.”

“Alison?!” Cosima shouted, jumping to her feet. She paced the length of the room, running a hand across her forehead. “God, we left her there? You’re telling me that we just… ran? Abandoned them?”

“It wasn’t like that,” Delphine said, stern-faced.

Cosima stopped in place, turned back to Delphine.

“So tell me then, what was it like? Because it looks like we’re here playing house while my sisters are being rounded up and locked in cages! It looks like we gave up!”

“I haven’t given up!” Delphine spat back, rising to meet her. “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about them and what they’re going through. I have been doing what I can; we both have. But DYAD has a very wide reach. If they find us, then it’s over. And who will be able to help your sisters then, huh? I am  _ trying, _ Cosima. So do not tell me that I’ve given up.”

Delphine turned away as she finished, seemingly embarrassed by her outburst. Cosima realized then that she had no reason to be.

“I’m sorry,” she said, tilting her head to draw Delphine’s eyes back to hers. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? You’re right, I don’t know shit about what you’ve been through.”

“I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t have snapped.”

Delphine raised a hand to Cosima’s face, pressing a palm gently against her cheek. Cosima’s stomach turned. Reflexively, she took a step back, leaving Delphine’s hand dangling in the air.

“Sorry,” Cosima said, watching Delphine slowly withdraw her arm, wounded. She thought back to the photo, how it had felt like two strangers smiling back at her. “Sorry, it’s just, um… how did we meet?”

“What do you mean?” Delphine asked, and Cosima recognized she was trying to keep the hurt out of her voice.

“In this timeline,” Cosima clarified. “How did you and I meet?”

“I was working at the DYAD Institute when they brought you in. Why?”

Cosima swallowed, finally able to pinpoint why this felt so wrong. Every moment, every single memory the two of them had shared, gone. Rewritten. This was definitely Delphine standing in front of her. Unmistakably, unequivocally Delphine. Only...

“I’m not the same Delphine you knew,” Delphine offered. “Is that it?”

“Maybe,” Cosima said, voice catching in her throat. “I dunno. I’m just a little freaked out by this whole thing. Sorry.”

“Hey, stop apologizing. It’s alright,” Delphine said, even if the waver in her voice gave her away. “I expected this would happen. So did you. Or  _ she, _ maybe I should say.”

Cosima nodded, running her eyes around the room again, the table that had been set for what appeared to be a special occasion. She remembered how she’d woken up, cradled in Delphine’s arms.

“Shit,” she said. “You were saying goodbye, huh?”

Delphine pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding sadly.

“She must’ve been scared,” Cosima said. Having lived with her illness, she’d had to confront her own mortality before, but to know the exact date and time that she would… die? Was that even the right word to use?

“Yes,” Delphine said. “But she was also incredibly brave. It felt like she was always the one comforting me.”

Cosima pushed down the churning feeling in her gut, reaching out and taking Delphine’s hand. Delphine gave a small smile, lightly squeezing her palm. The feel of it brought her back to the moment she and her sisters had jumped back in time, how Sarah’s hand had gripped hers as they began to fall away.

“Oh my god, the bridge!” she exclaimed.

“Bridge?” 

“We were supposed to meet there if we got separated,” Cosima said, dropping Delphine’s hand. She began pacing again. “God, I can’t believe I forgot!”

“Who?”

“Sarah, Helena, Al--” She stopped short. Alison had been taken, which was all the more reason she needed to find her sisters as soon as possible. “We have to go back to Toronto. Like, right now.”

“Cosima, slow down,” Delphine said, laying a hand on her arm. “Talk to me.”

“The four of us, we talked about it before we jumped,” Cosima explained. “A place we agreed to meet. If we all really did arrive back here at the same point in time, then that’s where they’ll be heading, I know it.”

“Okay,” Delphine said, nodding.

“It was Alison’s idea,” Cosima said. Her eyes began to well up. “She might have just saved all of us.”

“So we head back to Toronto,” Delphine clarified.

“We have to. How quickly can we get to the airport from here?”

Delphine shook her head.

“It’s too risky to fly right now. If Rachel knows about what you can do, there’s a good chance she knows that this is when the four of you would be arriving back in the present. And that means she’ll be watching for us.”

“Okay, so what are you saying?”

Delphine silently turned and walked to the table by the front door. She pulled open a small drawer, reached in, and dug out a set of keys.

“I’m saying we drive.”

 

* * *

 

 

The drive was quiet; several hours had passed without a word spoken between the two. Cosima had a million things she could think to say, but none of them would make this easier. None of them would calm the throbbing ache in her chest. 

She’d given up the driver seat halfway through Montana as her eyelids had started to grow heavy, and now she was here: head pressed up against the passenger side window, watching the endless line of trees fly by in the dark.

“Can’t sleep?” Delphine asked, finally choosing to break the silence.

Cosima pulled herself away from the glass, falling back into her seat.

“I can’t stop thinking about them,” she said. “God, what Alison must be going through.”

She heard her voice break and felt her eyes begin to tear up. She missed the quiet.

“I know,” Delphine said. “We’ll stop at the next motel. You need to rest.”

“No, hey, we can’t stop.”

“And you can’t drive on no sleep,” Delphine said calmly. “Getting into an accident isn’t going to help them.”

“Yeah, okay, you’re right,” Cosima conceded. She had to admit she was in no condition to drive at the moment. “I just can’t help feeling guilty, you know, wondering if there was more we could’ve done. Sorry, I’m not doubting you or anything. I know you did everything you could. It’s just where my head’s at right now.”

“Whatever happened before, you’re not responsible for it. It wasn’t… you.”

Delphine drew a sharp breath, tilting her head away as she blinked back tears. 

“God, Delphine,” Cosima said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you lost her. I’ve been so caught up in my own shit, I didn’t stop to think what you’re dealing with.”

Delphine offered Cosima a weak smile before turning back to the road.

“It’s okay. I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s not what’s important right now anyway.”

Whether it was ‘important’ or not, Cosima realized she needed something to take her mind off of the sense of dread eating away at her.

“Could you… tell me about us?” she asked.

“About us?”

“Yeah. Just the good stuff. I mean, I wanna hear about all of it, but just the good stuff for now.”

Delphine sat silently for a beat as she thought. Finally, her lips softened into a smile, sending a wave of relief washing over Cosima.

“I guess I could tell you about our first date,” she said.

“Good place to start,” Cosima said, smiling back. 

“Well, we didn’t call it a date. It was just the first time we felt safe enough to go out. It was something we both needed, I think.” 

“To feel like things were normal?”

“If only for a moment. You wanted to go for a walk, see the city. So that’s what we did. You took my hand and led the way, pulling us down alleys and side streets. You’d never been to Seattle before, but it was like you knew where you were going. And finally, we made it. The most amazing spot by the water, a beautiful view of the city, barely a person in sight. I don’t know how you did it.”

Cosima smirked, finding she could perfectly envision the awestruck look on Delphine’s face.

“Guess I’m just that smooth,” she said, drawing a chuckle from Delphine.

“Mhm, very smooth. We sat on the grass by the water watching the boats go by and just talked about silly things. School and growing up. We let ourselves feel happy.”

“Sounds nice,” Cosima whispered. And right now, it really did.

“It was. And that’s when you kissed me.”

“See?” Cosima said, laughing fondly. “Super smooth. Did you freak out?”

“A little,” Delphine admitted. She sighed, shaking her head, embarrassed. “I asked if you actually liked me or if you just thought you did because I broke you out of DYAD.”

“Oof,” Cosima groaned dramatically. “Buzzkill. But really considerate, actually. You always were the responsible one.”

She smiled over at Delphine. Delphine smiled back. Cosima felt the walls around her heart begin to crumble. Even without a single shared memory between them, she felt it. In the ways that mattered, this  _ was _ her Delphine.

“We got married by the water,” Cosima said, eyelids sliding closed as her mind drifted back to that day. “Small wedding at the park. It’s hard to believe now, but my sisters were there. Sarah, Alison, Helena. It was safe for them to be there.”

“We will make it safe again, Cosima.”

Cosima nodded, swallowing back the encroaching fear before continuing.

“You looked so beautiful,” she said. “And you were worried about what the wind would do to your hair.”

She paused, let out a small laugh at the memory.

“There was this moment during the ceremony. I saw you bite your bottom lip. You know, like you do when you’re nervous. And I don’t think I was supposed to or whatever, but I reached over and squeezed your hand. You looked up and smiled at me, and I just... let out this huge breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding in. After everything we’d been through, I guess it was just hard for me to accept that we’d finally made it to that point. I mean, getting married... Wow, right? I needed you to, I dunno, ground me in that moment, let me know it was real.”

She breathed in deep, shuddering as she felt the sting of tears in her eyes again.

“And now… I guess it wasn’t.”

“Hey.”

Cosima jumped as she felt Delphine’s hand on her shoulder. She opened her eyes to find they’d arrived, having pulled to a stop in the motel parking lot.

“Listen to me,” Delphine said. “Your memories are real. The Delphine that you love, she is real.”

Cosima nodded, watching helplessly as her hand drifted into Delphine’s hair. Their eyes met. Delphine bit her bottom lip.

“I miss you so much,” Cosima whispered.

She let Delphine pull her close and kiss her.


	7. The Disciple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/1Z9f1kx.png)   
> 

_Helena_

_I write to you this letter because I have seen your future. I have lived it. I am you, Helena. Your other self from a time far from now. You do not have to understand this. Only to trust that I am who I say._

_I know everything about you. I know Pupok. I know you can only sleep when you sing the lullaby Maggie taught to you. I know you still dream of the convent and cutting and bleeding all of the ones who hurt you and I know it never makes you whole._

_I understand that now. The path you walk now will never make you whole. Tomas says you are family. He says that this is love. But you know, don’t you? In your heart, you know, Helena. You have seen mothers laughing with their children. Feeding them when they are hungry. Tomas does not want this for you because he wants to control you. To keep you caged like animal._

_Tomas lies. I know that you remember the feeling when you killed the first copy. When you saw your face looking back at you. That feeling that you have pushed down and down for so long. That feeling Tomas tells you is wrong. She was scared. Scared and alone just like you. They are all just like you._

_Do you see, Helena? I know it is hard but you must understand this. You are not the original. You are a copy like them. It is not your fault. It is not their fault. I have met them. Helena, there is a light in all of them. They are not abominations like Tomas says. They are your family. And Tomas wants to take them from you. He wants to take your family._

_You have sinned, Helena, but there can still be salvation. You cannot let Tomas hurt them anymore._

_There is much more I must tell you about your future. But it is important that you first believe. Please, Helena. You must trust in me. I know there is much doubt inside of you, but I know that you also remember the words that you heard when God spoke to you that night._

_‘Your sisters love you.’_

 

* * *

 

Helena opened her eyes and took in her new reality.

_amen_

It didn’t take long to recognize where she was. This was her room in Sister Irina’s convent. She was kneeling on the hardwood floor, hands folded together in prayer. On the floor in front of her, a set of candles formed into a half-circle, their light filling the air with a soft glow. In the center of the candles, a small book bound in leather, the cover blank and worn. She picked it up and leafed through it, pages and pages written in Ukrainian, in her own handwriting. And drawings. She stopped at one: a picture of a woman with one arm outstretched to the sky. It was her, she realized, the same way she’d always drawn herself. And, in the sky, reaching back down to her, another woman drawn exactly the same.

 

* * *

 

_I have done as you said. Tomas is dead. He was no different from the others at the end. The hurting and fear in his eyes. It was easy to see it then. He was only a man. Twisting and corrupting God’s message._

_If you are who you say, then this can only be God’s will. But I slaughtered them. My sestras. I have taken innocent lives. I was a tool for this man’s wicked ways. So why would God choose to save me?_

 

* * *

 

Having read every page twice over, Helena tucked the journal into her coat, took one final look over her room, then stepped out into the hallway. She was hit immediately by the familiar scent of Irina’s beef stew, and she followed it down the winding stairway and into the kitchen. As expected, she found Irina tending to the pot on the stovetop.

“I must go, Sestra,” Helena announced.

Irina turned to face her, taking in the sight of her thick coat and the pack slung over her shoulder. She nodded as if she’d been expecting it, then motioned back to the stove, inquisitive.

“No. Thank you, but I cannot stay,” Helena said, stomach growling in protest. “I have to find my family.”

Irina nodded again, then waved a hand, beckoning her closer. Helena stepped around the table, and Irina reached out to her as she approached, taking her hands.

“You wish to pray for me?” Helena asked, and Irina nodded. “You have always been so kind to me, Sestra.”

Irina smiled softly, then bowed her head. Helena followed suit, and together, they prayed.

 

* * *

 

_I met my sestras today._

_Beth was the one who found me and took me to them. She said she would not hurt me if I do not hurt the others. She protects them, like a mother. Tomas would say she should be the first one to die._

_The one that they call MK, she is the most frightened of me, I think. She wears the face of a sheep, but I can see there is fear in her eyes. I tell her I will not hurt her, but she is still afraid. How do I make her not afraid?_

_Alison uses kind words, but she is also afraid. Afraid for her children. The copies that I killed, how many of them had children too?_

_Cosima is not afraid. She smiled and put her arms around me and said that I am okay now. I could not think of the words to say, so instead, I cried. I do not know why I cried._

_Sarah, my twin. She is all that you say she is. She is my heart. She is angry, but I know this is because she has been hurt like me. I asked her if she feels our connection and she said ‘I don’t know’. And then she cried too._

_Beth tells me I can stay here in her home tonight, but I cannot sleep. You have given me a gift that I do not deserve. I know that you will return one day, so I do this for you, Helena. I will protect this gift with my life._

 

* * *

 

It was dark by the time Helena stepped outside. She took one deep breath, then set off, stepping across the grassy field and into the woods. She kept the road on her right as she walked, far enough in the distance so as not to be spotted, and made her way back.

She walked for hours without stopping, out of the woods and into the city. She stuck to the shadows, the back alleys, her hand tucked into her jacket pocket, wrapped tightly around the handle of her knife. She knew there could be people out here, lurking in the dark, hunting for her. If they came, she would be ready for them.

 

* * *

  

_I failed. I have failed you, my other self. I have failed my family. They are all gone, taken from me._

_Perhaps God did not send you to save me, but to punish me. To bring me peace and joy and love, and then to take it away. But why? Why must my family suffer for my sins?_

_Sometimes, in the dark and in the quiet, I think I can feel you and hear you within me. If you are there, please. Tell me why. Tell me what to do now. I need your guidance. You are the only one left to lead me._

 

* * *

 

Helena turned the corner and finally saw her destination in the distance. Streetlights lined the sides of the bridge, illuminating the concrete surface, but it was too dark to see underneath. She crossed the empty street cautiously, scanning the shadows as she moved. She stepped down the small embankment to the bridge’s underside, and stopped short as she heard what sounded like whispering. Her hand tightened around the knife in her pocket. She squinted against the light shining down from overhead and could just make out a dark shape ahead of her.

“Who’s there?” she asked.

“Helena?!”

She recognized Sarah’s voice straight away, and before she could react, another shape had emerged from the darkness and thrown their arms around her.

“Sarah,” she cried, bringing her arms up around her sister.

“Shit,” Sarah whispered, sniffling. “Knew I shouldn’t’ve been worried about you, meathead.”

“Hey, Helena,” said the other shape, and Helena could just make out her face now, smiling softly. “I’m Beth.”

“Hello, Beth Childs.”

Sarah pulled away, and Helena finally got a good look at her, face wet with tears.

“We’re gonna fix this, yeah?”

“Yes,” Helena agreed. “If we are together, we will always defeat them. Like before.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, smiling. “Just like before.”

 

* * *

 

_It is almost time now for you to return. I could not protect your family. I could not find them again. I have failed in my mission, and I know that you can never forgive me. This is all that I can do now, to keep you safe here with Sestra Irina. To hide you away from the evil that took them._

_I do not know what will become of me, but I am not afraid. You are the true Helena, and I am only your vessel. I will pray for you, Helena._

_I will pray that someday, you will see your family safe again._


	8. Familiar Eyes Tell No Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/I8OKIx7.png)

Huddled under the bridge’s shadow, Sarah, Beth, and Helena took the time to go over what they knew and a significantly longer amount of time going over what they still  _ didn’t _ know. Cosima and Alison were still out there somewhere, and for now, they could only hope they’d be able to make it back. As for MK…

“We came up with a system to contact each other online in case of an emergency,” Beth said. “I’ve been trying to reach her, but... there’s been no response so far.”

Sarah swallowed. There were any number of reasons she could think of for why MK wouldn’t have been in contact, none of them good.

“If they got to her,” Beth continued. “It’s possible that they’re holding her in that facility.”

“Facility? What does this mean?” Helena asked.

“Beth found where they might’ve taken some of our sisters,” Sarah explained. Helena’s head perked up.

“So we break in, and we free them,” she said.

“I know how you feel,” Sarah said. She’d been wrestling with the idea of what her sisters might be going through ever since she’d heard. “But we gotta wait for now, see if Cos and Alison show up before we do anythin’ crazy.”

“I agree,” Beth said. “But Sarah, I hope you understand, even if they make it back here and we’re able to make the jump, I can’t leave without MK. I can’t leave her here.”

“Hey,” Sarah said, laying a hand on Beth’s shoulder. “We’re not leavin’ anyone.”

“Yes,” Helena agreed. “It is like sestra Cosima said. We will make a future safe for  _ all _ of us.”

Helena punctuated the end of her sentence with a loud yawn. If she’d come from the convent, god knows how long she’d been walking. Even in the dark, Sarah could see her fighting to stay upright.

“Helena, you’re exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” she replied through another yawn.

“You know, it probably makes sense to do this in shifts,” Beth offered. “We have no idea how long it could be before the others show up.”

_ If _ they showed up, Sarah thought.

“Right,” she said, looking back and forth between the other two. “How should we do this?”

“You two head back to the apartment,” Beth said. “You both look like you could use some rest.”

“You sure?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah. Spend some time with your sister. I’ll be back before morning. You remember the way?”

“Yeah.” Even though Sarah doubted she’d be able to sleep, she definitely appreciated the opportunity to get out of the cold. “Thank you, Beth.”

“Thank you, Beth,” Helena repeated.

“Be careful, yeah?” Sarah said.

“You too.”

  


* * *

  


In silence, Sarah and Helena made their way through the darkness back to the apartment. Strange as it was to admit, Sarah felt safer here with Helena and her knife than she had with Beth and her gun.

Sarah pushed open the front door, allowing Helena to enter before shutting it again.

“Well,” Sarah said, breathing a sigh of relief. “This is it.” 

She watched Helena’s eyes slowly drag over the room: the desk with the strange message, the wall with the hole punched through it, the two beds (one considerably messier than the other), the cluster of empty beer bottles in the corner.

“Kind of a shithole, innit?”

“It is not so bad,” Helena said, shrugging. “It is a place to eat and sleep.”

“Yeah,” Sarah conceded. “Speakin’ of which, you hungry? I’m starvin’.”

“Yes.” 

Sarah smirked, heading for the kitchen.

“Didn’t even need to ask, did I?”

She pulled open the small fridge, found it stacked top to bottom with booze. In her still-hungover state, the sight of it made her stomach turn. The cabinets weren’t much better, though she managed to find a couple of boxes of protein bars and a shelf filled with canned food.

“Soup?” she asked, tentative.

“Is there beef stew?” Helena asked.

“Uh…” Sarah stammered, digging through the cans. “Beef and country vegetables.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Sarah nodded, peeling the lids off two cans of the stuff and dumping the contents into the pot on the stovetop. It didn’t exactly look appetizing, but there was hardly any point in being choosy now. She stepped out of the kitchen to find Helena having made herself comfortable on Beth’s bed.

“I can tell which is yours, sestra,” she chuckled, motioning to the shabby bed in the corner.

“Piss off,” Sarah said, laughing fondly. She grabbed a seat next to her sister on Beth’s bed, leaning her back up against the wall.

“I needed this, y’know,” she sighed. “I needed you here. I know it’s only been a few hours, or Christ, however long y’wanna call it. What I’m tryin’ to say is that I missed you.”

Helena scooted closer, laying her head lightly on Sarah’s shoulder.

“I missed you also,” she said, groggy.

“Wanna see somethin’?” Sarah asked, digging a hand into her pocket and pulling out a small origami angel, slightly rumpled at the corners.

Helena took it into her hands slowly, like it would fall apart if she wasn’t careful.

“It’s not one of Kira’s, I know that,” Sarah explained. Even if it had been possible, she’d know the difference. Kira’s angels always came out better than Sarah’s, no matter how many times she’d tried to teach her mum how to fold them properly. “I must’ve-- the other me, I mean. She must’ve made it.”

“To remember her,” Helena said.

“Yeah,” Sarah sighed. Her eyes stung with tears.

“You will see her again, Sarah,” Helena said, placing a hand on Sarah’s knee. Sarah reached down, placing her own hand over Helena’s.

“I know,” she said and tried to believe it. She had to believe it. “Anyway, after I found it, you showed up. Just like before.”

“At Rachel’s house?”

“Yeah, at Rachel’s house.”

“Sarah,” Helena said, serious. “I will always come back for you, angel or no. You know this.”

“Alright, meathead,” Sarah laughed, trying to distract from the tears now freely spilling from her eyes. She threw an arm around her sister, rubbing at her shoulder. “You don’t gotta be so dramatic, yeah? Just thought you’d find it funny.”

“Okay, sestra.” 

Both were silent for a moment, the only sound the hum of the cheap fridge from the kitchen.

“How is Beth?” Helena asked.

“I dunno,” Sarah sighed, shaking her head. “She’s not what I expected. She acts like she’s alright, but I can see deep down, she’s… angry. But I never really knew her, y’know? Dunno if she was always this way or if somethin’ happened to her.”

“What Rachel has done, I think it has made us all angry. Beth has lived with it longer than us.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, nodding. Beth and MK had jumped to the past months before the others had, meaning they’d also arrived in this new timeline earlier. “That’s probably what it is.”

“Maybe you can talk to her,” Helena offered. “Help her to heal. Like you have done for me.”

Sarah ran her hand up and down Helena’s arm, comforting, as she recalled some of Helena’s more horrifying and heartbreaking admissions and how she’d trusted Sarah with them.

“Maybe.”

  


* * *

  


Days had come and gone since Helena arrived. Each shift at the bridge felt longer and colder and lonelier than the last. The hope that their sisters would come was drifting further and further away.

Sarah stood at the kitchen counter, watching the steam waft off of her cup of tea. If she stared hard enough, she could almost believe she was back in S’s kitchen, taking a moment to herself in the morning twilight before waking Kira up for school. It had become a part of her daily routine, and now, Sarah missed that routine more than anything.

“How you holding up?” Beth asked, shaking Sarah out of her reverie.

“Been better,” Sarah sighed. “What if no one else shows up?”

“Then we find them. I’m ready to move on the DYAD facility whenever you are.”

“It’s gonna work, right?” Sarah asked. She knew this wasn’t like her, used to springing into action whenever the situation called for it, and this was beginning to feel more and more like their only option. Still, if it didn’t work…

“It has to,” Beth said. “Look, Rachel think she’s won, but we’ve beaten her before. We can beat her again.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sarah said, trying to believe it. The only way through was to trust in Beth. “I just don’t understand why she’s doin’ this. She’s not a bad person, not really. She’s just… “

She grasped for the words, thought of what Cosima might say if she were here.

“A product of her environment,” she finished.

“Don’t be naive, Sarah,” Beth said.

Sarah looked up from her cup and saw the cold look on Beth’s face.

“Say again?”

“It’s not about whether she’s good or bad,” Beth said flatly. “Have you really stopped to think about this ability of ours and what it can do? It’s much more than just some easy fix for a guilty conscience.”

_ Guilty conscience?  _ She couldn’t mean...

“What’re you sayin’, Beth? That I shouldn’t’ve stopped you that night, is that it?”

“You don’t want to start this, Sarah,” Beth said, then turned and began to walk out of the room. Sarah’s arm shot out on instinct, grabbing her arm and holding her in place.

“No, let’s bloody start,” she spat. “You wanna blame me for this shit we’re in, fine. But I’m sure as hell not gonna apologize for savin’ your life.”

“You really don’t get it,” Beth muttered, eyes narrowing into thin slits.

“What don’t I get, ey?” Sarah shot back. “You think I don’t carry my mistakes around with me? You think I don’t know the feelin’ of hatin’ yourself so much that you have to drag everyone else down with you just to keep from drownin’ in it? Tell me what I don’t get, Beth.”

Beth was silent, nostrils flaring as she breathed in and out. Sarah saw it again in her eyes, the pain she kept bottled inside, just out of reach. She took Beth’s arm again, gentler this time.

“No matter where it led us, I don’t regret savin’ your life.”

Beth’s eyes fell to her arm. She swatted Sarah’s hand away.

“Don’t pretend to know me,” she said, then turned and walked out, leaving Sarah alone in the kitchen. 

Her tea had gone cold.

  


* * *

  


Some time later, the front door swung open, breaking through the chilly silence that lingered after Sarah and Beth’s argument. Helena stumbled in.

“Look at who I found,” she announced cheerfully, stepping aside to reveal the two women standing behind her. Delphine and...

“Cos?!” Sarah cried.

As different as she looked, there was no mistaking it. Cosima sprang forward, swallowing Sarah into a tight hug.

“Hey, Sarah.”

“Y’alright?” Sarah mumbled into her shoulder.

“As good as I can be, right?”

Cosima pulled back, flashing a small smile. She followed Sarah’s eyes upward.

“Sorry,” Sarah laughed. “Your hair…” 

“Oh yeah, you like it?” Cosima ran a hand over the short bristles. “You can thank Rachel.”

“Rachel?” Beth repeated. Cosima turned to face her.

“Oh my god. Beth, is that really you?”

She released Sarah and pulled Beth into a hug of her own.

“Who else?” Beth laughed. “It’s good to see you, Cosima.”

“Hey, Delphine,” Sarah said, raising her hand in an awkward wave.  _ Had they even met in this timeline? _ “Good to see you.”

“Hello, Sarah,” she replied, smiling politely. 

“So what’s this about Rachel?” Sarah asked.

“Cosima was in DYAD’s custody for some time,” Delphine explained. “What they’re doing to your sisters, it’s inhumane. Holding them in windowless cells, shaving their heads for medical testing…”

God, it was even worse than Sarah had imagined. The thought of it made her want to vomit. 

“Luckily, I was able to get her out,” Delphine continued. “But there was nothing I could do for the others.”

Cosima cleared her throat nervously, drawing the others’ attention.

“They have Alison,” she said.

“What?” Sarah blurted. 

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Delphine said. “They’ve had her for months now.”

“And Mika?” Sarah croaked. 

Delphine shook her head.

“She wasn’t being held with Alison, but my access to DYAD’s records was limited. It’s possible she was taken to another location or that she was captured later.”

“Right,” Sarah said, turning to Beth, jaw set. “We’re gettin’ Alison out tonight.”

Beth and Helena both nodded back in agreement.

“Whoa, whoa,” Cosima said, looking between the three. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve been staking out this building,” Beth explained, stepping to the desk and grabbing the notepad off the top. She leafed through the pages in search of something. “Definitely DYAD-owned. I think they’re keeping Ledas there. Here it is.”

She handed the notepad over to Delphine, whose eyebrows tightened as she looked over the writing.

“Is that address familiar?” Beth asked.

“It’s not the same address, no. But I can’t say that means much. DYAD would have moved them after I broke Cosima out.”

“Right,” Beth replied, chewing at her bottom lip as she considered. “That’s pretty much what I thought.”

“And the plan is what?” Cosima asked. “We break into a DYAD facility by ourselves, unarmed, find Alison, and somehow make it out alive?”

“Not unarmed exactly,” Sarah clarified, reaching down and pulling out the pistol from underneath Beth’s mattress before dropping it unceremoniously on top of the bed.

“Shit,” Cosima muttered, dragging a hand across her forehead.

“I know when the guard changes over. I know our point of entry,” Beth explained. “I get it, it sounds desperate, but let’s face it, we’re pretty desperate right now.”

“Cos,” Sarah said gently, taking Cosima’s shaking hand. “I can’t just sit here knowin’ what Alison’s goin’ through.”

“No, I know,” Cosima said, nodding. “If there’s a chance we can get her out…”

“What are you saying?” Delphine cut in, panicked. “It’s too dangerous. If you are caught, then that’s the end of it, you understand? You’ll all end up exactly like Alison.”

“Not necessarily,” Beth said. “Now that Cosima’s here, we have a fail-safe.”

“Yeah,” Cosima said, as though she’d already realized it. “There are four of us. We can jump.”

“But if we do this, we will leave Alison and MK, yes?” Helena asked, worried.

“We’re talking worst-case scenario,” Beth said. “I’m not planning on leaving this timeline without them. But if all four of us go in together, it’s at least an option.”

The room was silent for a moment as they considered the possibility of leaving their sisters behind. Here, in the absolute worst timeline.

“Look,” Cosima said. “There’s still a lot we don’t know about how this all works. Like, there are all kinds of theories out there about time travel, but that’s all they are, right?”

“What’re you sayin’?” Sarah asked.

“I’m saying, what if we don’t leave  _ anything _ behind when we jump? Maybe those other timelines don’t even exist anymore, and this one is all there is.”

“Bloody hell,” Sarah muttered. “I don’t wanna think about that shit.”

“No, listen,” Cosima said, exasperated. “What I mean is that maybe by jumping, we can save them all anyway. The bad timeline goes away, and Alison and MK are safe in the new timeline.”

“Sounds like a cop-out,” Beth snapped.

“Hey, alright,” Sarah said calmly, holding a hand up to ease the situation before it got out of hand. “It’s true though, Cos. There’s no way we can know that.”

“Yeah, no, of course,” Cosima said, reeling slightly from Beth’s outburst. “I’m just thinking out loud. This is a lot to take in.”

“I know,” Sarah said. “We all want to get Alison outta there, but we’re not gonna force you, alright? If you need more time to think about it--”

“No,” Cosima said firmly. “You’re right. We can’t leave her there any longer. I haven’t been able to sleep since I found out.”

She turned to her side, looked into Delphine’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Helena reached over and pat Cosima’s shoulder. 

“We will free her,” she said.

“Yeah,” Cosima said, forcing a smile. She reached up and placed one hand over Helena’s, then looked around at the others. “Let’s get the hell out of this timeline.”

  


* * *

  


The plan, such as it was, went like this: Sarah, Beth, Helena, and Cosima would head to the facility. Delphine, in spite of her protests, would have to stay behind. Without the ability to jump, by going with them, she would only risk being captured. 

According to Beth, at 10PM, a certain guard always exited through a certain door leading into the building’s parking lot, which is where the four of them would be lying in wait. Once they took out the guard, they’d use his keycard to enter the building through the same side entrance. After that, well… it was anyone’s guess what they’d find inside. They’d just have to follow Beth’s lead.

The longest part of the discussion centered around the fail-safe, or more specifically, deciding the point in time they would jump to in case anything went wrong. A quick test confirmed that they could access memories like Cosima’s wedding from pasts that no longer existed. In the end though, that fact proved irrelevant.

In Sarah, Helena, and Cosima’s ‘original’ timeline, Timeline C, Beth was dead. Jumping to any point after Beth had stepped in front of that train would leave her consciousness stranded without a body. Timeline C had to be ruled out.

In Beth’s timeline, Timeline A,  _ Helena _ was dead. Shot by Beth. Timeline A was also ruled out.

Eventually, it was decided that their best option was to return to when Sarah and Beth met at the train station and record the video message again, this time including what could only be a vague warning about Rachel. With no indication of how she had discovered their ability in the first place, this was all they could think to do to prevent it. 

It was an imprecise plan, filled with unknowns, and everyone in the room felt it. It was also the only plan they had.

  


* * *

  


Sarah walked into the kitchen, allowing Cosima and Delphine a moment alone to say their goodbyes, just in case. Only just in case.

She spotted Helena as she entered, pulling one of the smaller knives out of the knife block and slipping it into her boot.

“You’re just knockin’ the guard out, yeah?” Sarah asked, nervously eyeing the bulge of the other knife already in her coat pocket.

“Yes,” Helena replied, nodding. “No killing. It is only to be safe.”

“Hey,” Beth cut in, scratching at the back of her neck sheepishly as she entered behind Sarah. “Just wanted to say that I think this is the right call. And that I’m sorry… for how I acted earlier.”

“No worries,” Sarah said. “You were right. I don’t know you, but I want to, yeah? Once this is done, and we’re all free of this shit. We’ll go for drinks, or, I dunno, go for a run or whatever it is Beth Childs does for fun.”

She tapped Beth’s shoulder, flashing her an affectionate grin. Beth laughed warmly.

“I’d like that,” she replied.

“It’s about time, right?” Cosima said, standing at the entrance, arms folded around herself. Her and Delphine’s eyes were both red and swollen.

Beth glanced at her watch.

“Yeah, you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Cosima said.

“You two?” Beth asked, turning to Sarah and Helena.

“Ready,” Helena said.

“Let’s do this,” Sarah said.

Beth nodded, then motioned for the others to follow. Together, they all stepped out through the front door.

  


* * *

  


They had a good view of the building from their vantage point atop a small hill over the parking lot, accessed by cutting a hole through some thin fencing. It stood three stories tall, the second and third floors lined with windows to nothing: empty, stark white hallways with no indication of what went on beyond them. The first floor left even more to the imagination, nothing but a few thick doors set into concrete walls. 

Sarah, Beth, and Cosima lay prone in the grass, watching and waiting. Helena had snuck over to a patch of shadows off to the side, awaiting her cue. 

“Should be any minute now,” Beth whispered.

Sarah nodded, shivering not only from the cold, but from nerves.

Only a second later, her breath caught as the door swung open and their target stepped out into the parking lot.

“Here we go,” Beth said, before pushing herself up into a crouched position and scurrying quietly down the side of the hill.

Sarah glanced over, just able to make out the shape of Helena moving in the dark, ready to pounce.

Beth reached the bottom of the hill, ducking behind a row of cars as she approached the guard, already pulling his keys from his pocket. She slid around the last car in the line and stood up, gun aimed in his direction.

“Freeze.”

The guard locked in place, startled, before raising his hands in the air.

“Your gun and your keycard, on the ground,” Beth commanded. “Now.”

The guard nodded, first carefully pulling his weapon out of its holster and slowly lowering it to the ground. Then the keycard.

Sarah was so laser-focused on the scene in front of her that she’d forgotten all about the second part of the plan, right up until Helena was already at the guard’s back, her arm pulled tightly around his neck. He struggled for a brief moment, clawing desperately behind him, but eventually succumbed, his body slumping over, unconscious. Together, Beth and Helena dragged him into the shadow of a large truck in the corner of the lot, then stepped out, motioning Sarah and Cosima over. 

Quickly but carefully, they stood and made their way down the hill.

“Here,” Beth whispered as soon as they’d caught up, handing Sarah the guard’s gun. “You know how to use it, right?”

“Yeah,” she replied. Something to thank Alison for once they’d gotten her out of here.

“Okay,” Beth said. “Let’s move.”

And she was off, moving in quick steps toward the side entrance, the others following close behind. She swiped the keycard over the reader, pulled the door open and slipped inside. Sarah took one nervous glance at the camera overhead, then entered behind her.

And just like that, they were inside. 

The door led to a narrow stairwell, brightly lit by the fluorescent bulbs lining the wall. Beth and the others were already moving to the door on the far side.

“Wait,” Sarah said. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something just wasn’t sitting right.

“What is it?” Cosima asked, concerned.

“Dunno,” Sarah said. “It’s just… this feels too easy.”

“It’s too late for second thoughts, Sarah,” Beth pointed out.

She was right, of course. They’d already taken out a guard and been recorded on camera. If they bailed now, DYAD would have this entire building cleared out by morning, and there’d be little to no hope of finding Alison after that.

She nodded, hoping it was enough to reassure the others, then stepped forward to join them, pushing down the nervous feeling in her gut.

“It will be alright,” Helena whispered, leaning in close to her sister. “As long as we all stay together.”

The two exchanged nods before following their sisters deeper into the heart of the building. On the other side of the door, another long stretch of the same eerie, white walls they’d spotted through the windows. An identical hallway stretched out to their left. 

The door behind them slid closed with a click, the small light on the card reader beside it changing from green to red.

And in that instant, it happened. A flash of movement caught Sarah’s eye. Her head whipped to the left just as a guard stepped out through a door down the hall, gun drawn and pointed in their direction. Then another guard. Then another. Another three poured out into the hallway ahead of them, guns out and trained on the four sisters.

_ “Shit,” _ Sarah hissed.

Just as quickly as it had begun, it was over.  _ But how? _ They’d been caught on camera, sure, but a response as immediate and as coordinated as this… It was almost if they’d been warned.

Sarah felt Helena grasp her hand tight, turned to see her holding onto Cosima as well. 

_ The fail-safe. _

They were surrounded. No way out. Just like that, it had become their only option. Gun in hand, Sarah reached her arm out for Beth to take.

Beth cocked her head toward Sarah’s outstretched arm. Her eyes darted upward, meeting Sarah’s. She smiled.

Then, she turned and began to walk away.

“Beth!” Sarah whispered furiously.

She stepped closer to the guards, not one of them making an attempt to stop her. Their eyes remained fixed on the other three as if she were invisible. The  _ tap tap tap _ of her boots echoed through the empty halls as she walked.

Then, she stopped. Turned. Her face twisted into a smile. It looked wrong. Horribly wrong.

She raised her arm and pointed her gun directly at Sarah.

“What’s wrong, Sarah?” she asked. “Don’t you recognize me?”

No. _ No no no.  _ It was impossible. Her voice.  _ It was... _

“Rachel…”


	9. Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/X2xhVlX.png)  
> 

**TIMELINE A**

“She’s not picking up.”

MK could see Beth’s face tighten in worry as she pulled the phone away from her ear and began scrolling back through her contacts.

The atmosphere in MK’s trailer was tense. They’d only just uncovered something huge, a secret buried deep within DYAD’s servers: information about the Leda sisters and the power that lived inside them. An “anomaly”, they called it. An “energy”.

And now Sarah wasn’t answering her phone. Alison wasn’t answering her phone.

“I’ll try Cosima,” Beth said, raising the phone to her ear.

“Beth…”

This felt all too familiar to MK. A group of clones digging deeper than they were supposed to, until, one by one, they began to disappear.

“I know, okay?” Beth replied, panicked. “Come on. Pick up, pick up, pick up…”

MK shuffled to the window and peeked through the blinds. No movement that she could see. Not yet.

“Fuck!” Beth shouted. She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Mika, what do we do?”

It was a tone she wasn’t used to hearing from Beth, a far cry from her usual take-charge demeanor. If she was looking to MK for guidance, it could only mean she realized the situation they were in.

“I can take us somewhere safe, buy us some time,” MK explained. “But we have to hurry, and you have to do exactly what I say. Give me your phone.”

She reached a hand out.  Beth lowered her gaze to the phone, hesitating.

“Do you trust me?” MK asked, finding herself unsure of the answer.

“Of course,” Beth said, swallowing. She placed the phone in MK’s hand. “We’re a team.”

 _A team._ MK wished she had a moment to revel in the thought and how happy it made her feel, but there was no time. She threw the phone onto her desk, picked up the nearby lamp and brought it crashing down onto the screen.

 

* * *

 

**TIMELINE E**

Beth had hardly had a moment’s rest since then. Any semblance of her life up to that point, whatever it was, was gone. This was her reality now, a timeline where she and her sisters were hunted for the power inside them. She found herself missing the simpler reality of a global clone conspiracy.

Though she normally tried to avoid it, today, she caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror. Ever since she’d discovered her sisters, she’d only been able to see in herself what was missing. That spark, that light in their eyes, she didn’t have it. Same shell, nothing more.

Still, until she could see her sisters safe, she’d have a reason to keep fighting. As for what lay beyond that, what would be there to fill in the dark spaces in her mind, the blanks that ate away at her when she would think about her future… she didn’t know.

She pulled open the bathroom door and stepped out into the living area, immediately spotting Mika at work on her laptop, legs folded to her chest.

They’d traded the trailer for a shabby but well-hidden basement apartment on the outskirts of the city that, in spite of everything, had begun to feel like a home. They’d both made some amount of effort in sprucing up the place, and judging from the way Mika had lived before, she suspected it was mostly for Beth’s benefit.

“Beth!” Mika called as though she’d been gone for days. “You should see this.”

Beth obliged, walking around to Mika’s work desk and taking a look at the screen, a cascade of open windows, all with similarly indecipherable strands of code.

“Yeah, you’re gonna have to tell me what I’m looking at here.”

“Right,” Mika said, chewing at a fingernail in thought before extending it toward one of the windows. “You see here? This system controls power to the entire building.”

The building she was referring to was a secret DYAD facility she’d uncovered after months of combing through their network. With a proud smirk on her face, she’d made sure to point out that she could have found it sooner if they hadn’t had to take quite so many precautions. In another timeline, DYAD had been able to track her down, and she wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

“And you can shut it down?” Beth asked.

“Potentially, yes.”

“Will that work? I mean, they have to have some kind of backup system, right?”

Mika’s lips curled into a familiar smug smile as if she’d been hoping Beth would ask.

“Yes, actually,” she said. “There should be a transfer switch that detects a power outage and automatically switches to a backup system. Entirely analog. If that happens, I’ll have no control. The trick is to maintain power to the transfer switch so the backup system never activates in the first place. It’s not much, but it should buy us at least a few minutes inside.”

Beth chuckled fondly, laying a hand on Mika’s shoulder.

“Can’t believe you know how to do all this stuff,” she said.

Mika looked up at her, her smirk shifting into something softer.

“Wait,” Beth added. “You said _‘us’?”_

“Yes,” Mika said, nodding. She turned back to the screen, hiding her face as she continued. “I’m going with you, of course. If there is trouble inside, we may have to jump to the past.”

“Mika,” Beth said, serious. Mika’s head turned slightly in her direction. “You understand there’s a good chance I won’t make it that far, right? I can’t put you at risk like that. If I don’t make it out, at least you’ll be safe. At least you can go on living.”

She watched Mika click into another window and begin typing, eyes shifting around the screen as she spoke.

“If you don’t make it out, then what’s the point?”

 

* * *

 

MK worried. MK had always worried, and time and again, been proven that she had a reason to. It had been nearly fifteen years since she’d seen her first real friend, her sister, strangled to death in her own home. And only recently, she’d almost lost her second.

 

* * *

 

**TIMELINE D**

MK pulled the laptop from her backpack and placed it on Beth’s kitchen counter. A video message. The simplest, most direct way they’d be able to influence their other selves.

MK-D? Beth-D? She’d have time to consider labels later.

With a few taps, she pulled open the recording software. All she had to do was set it up so the video would auto-upload and be sent out to the others. After all, the message would be useless if no one watched it.

“Hey.”

She turned to see Beth slowly approaching, an expression on her face she couldn’t quite read.

“It’s almost ready,” MK said, turning back to the computer.

“Okay,” Beth said softly. “Before we start, can we talk for a second?

“Why?” MK said, harsher than she’d intended. “We don’t have time to waste.”

“I get it. It’s important, okay?”

Something in her voice made MK nervous. _More_ nervous.

“Okay,” she said, continuing to type even as her fingers began to tremble. “So talk.”

She heard Beth take a deep breath before speaking again.

“The reason Sarah and the others came back to this moment, it was to stop me from doing something stupid.”

MK glanced back at Beth, saw the solemn expression on her face. She spotted Sarah on the couch in the distance, staring nervously before turning away.

“I was gonna kill myself, alright?” Beth blurted out. “Just end it.”

MK felt dizzy. She placed a hand on the counter to steady herself.

“What?” she croaked. “Why?!”

“I dunno, it just felt like the only way out,” Beth said, shaking her head. “Not just for me, but for all of you.”

“But we’re a team!” MK shouted, and she was crying, sudden and heavy. “You said!”

“I’m sorry,” Beth said, taking hold of MK’s hand. MK gripped tight, afraid it might slip away. “Look, you were right, we don’t have much time--”

“No!” MK screamed. She sounded like a petulant child, and she hated it. “That’s not fair! You can’t tell me this and then say there’s no time. It’s not fair.”

She sobbed as Beth pulled her close, throwing her arms around her. She clutched Beth’s shoulders tightly.

“I know,” Beth whispered. “It’s not fair.”

“I’m sorry,” MK whimpered. “I’m so sorry, Beth.”

“Hey,” Beth said, and MK could hear her crying now too. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I should have known you were in pain. I should have seen it.”

“God, Mika,” Beth cried, pulling her in tighter. “There was nothing you could’ve done, okay?”

“I can’t do this without you,” MK said, and it had never felt more true. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

 

* * *

 

**TIMELINE E**

Beth had kept her promise, and in return, MK tried her hardest to be a good friend, to keep Beth afloat in this new hellish timeline they’d found themselves trapped in. Stupidly, MK had even grown accustomed to it. As horrible as it was to think, even as her sisters were being rounded up and held prisoner, here with Beth, she could almost say she was… happy.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” Beth asked, having turned away from their game to watch the TV they’d set up by the table. A news report about the stress of holiday shopping. “Being holed up in here while the world just carries on like normal.”

“I’m used to it, I guess,” MK replied.

“Right,” Beth said, and she looked sad now. _Never underestimate your ability to say the wrong thing,_ MK thought.

She shifted her focus back to the game, managing to play out all but one of her tiles, just barely reaching that coveted triple word score space.

“Jesus, Mika,” Beth sighed, even as a smile played on her face. “What the hell is “vulpine” anyway?”

“Relating to foxes,” MK hummed. “Like the mask you refuse to wear.”

“Oh,” Beth chuckled. “So we’re working out our frustrations through board games now, huh? Alright, I can handle it.”

Beth considered her tiles for a moment as MK watched on in silence. A shrill, beeping sound brought her back to reality.

“What was that?” Beth asked, alarmed.

“A new email,” MK said. She’d just recently managed to worm her way into one of DYAD’s less secure servers; anything more than that was too risky. Even here, DYAD was careful. Any messages more than a few days old had been deleted, leaving little more than a few routine IT and maintenance emails. That was, until this one.

_The twins are in hand. Will await 324B21’s potential arrival within the next few days before bringing them in. Be ready to begin the operation at a moment’s notice._

MK swallowed. 324B21. Cosima Niehaus’s tag. And ‘the twins’ could only be…

“Oh my god,” Beth groaned as her eyes ran back and forth over the message.

DYAD had found them. MK felt sick, guilt blooming in her stomach. She’d gotten complacent, comfortable while her sisters suffered.

“But,” Beth continued. “I don’t understand. Who sent this?”

MK’s eyes rose to the sender’s address. A meaningless string of letters and numbers.

“I can try to find out,” MK offered.

“Why would they wait?” Beth asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If DYAD has Sarah and Helena,” Beth continued, pausing to swallow back her disgust at the thought of it. “Why wait to bring them in? And what’s this about waiting for Cosima?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s being transferred from somewhere else?”

“Then why use the word ‘potential’?” Beth asked. “It sounds like they’re not sure she’ll even show up.”

“It is strange,” MK said.

“Well,” Beth said. “Whatever the reason, this could be an opportunity.”

MK swiveled in her chair to face Beth, who was nodding to herself as she thought.

“Whoever this is,” she continued. “It sounds like they’ll email again when they’re bringing them in. It could be just the distraction I need.”

 _“We_ need,” MK said.

“Yeah, still not totally sold on that idea,” Beth grumbled. “But what do you think? How soon can you be done with the coding?”

“It’s hard to say,” MK admitted, which was true, but the doubt and panic now forming in her chest was there for another reason entirely.

MK wouldn’t be ready. Even if her code was perfect, double and triple checked. Even if she could guarantee that she and Beth and all their sisters would make it out safe. The future was terrifying. Unknown. She’d barely escaped a future without Beth in it, and she’d carried the fear of it ever since. A new recurring nightmare to join the others.

Beth stepping in front of a train.

Niki, eyes stretched open, gasping for breath.

And, of course, the fire.

 

* * *

 

_Why do you have my face?_

A young girl standing there in front of Veera, expensive clothes and braided pigtails. She looked curious. Lonely, perhaps?

_Veera Suominen. Why do you look like me?_

A flicker of light behind her and the room ignited, a wreath of flame encircling the both of them. The girl - Rachel - unfazed. Still lonely? Burning. Both of them. Burning. Together.

_Veera_

MK’s body shook awake. She peeled her face off the pillow and pushed herself to sitting.

“Who’s there?!” she croaked.

The room was silent. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, squinting into the darkness. No one, of course. Just another bad dream. More vivid, more real than the others, but just a dream. She hadn’t heard a voice, after all. _Heard?_ No, maybe that wasn’t the right word. _Felt,_ maybe, from somewhere deep inside her. Whatever it was, it hadn’t happened.

Slowly, she sank back down onto her pillow and pulled the covers back up over herself. She closed her eyes, willing her heartbeat to slow.

_save her_

MK’s eyes shot open as a sudden, sharp chill tore through her body, and for one brief moment, everything was clear. She saw the path before her, what had to be done, the only thing that _could_ be done. The one way out of this for her, for Beth, for all of their sisters. _How had she not realized it sooner?_

And then, all too quickly, the feeling faded. Her mind reeled as warmth began to flow again through her veins.

_What was that?_

It hadn’t been a dream. She could say that now for certain. So, either she was going insane, or… _or_ _what?_ She could see the future? Someone, some _thing_ was speaking to her through her own mind?

MK lay awake and considered, waiting for the feeling, whatever it was, to return. It never did.

 

* * *

 

It had been a few days since the email, and still no update. Mika had long since finished writing the code they needed, though that hadn’t stopped her from spending every waking minute checking and re-checking for mistakes.

Beth stood at the kitchen sink, cleaning away the last remnants of dinner. It was as much as she could think to do: cook meals for the two of them and occasionally force Mika to sit at the table for a moment, watch her stress briefly melt away as she took her first bite.

There was something different about Mika today. More than a couple of times, Beth had caught her with her head up, staring dazed at some point on the wall.

“Everything alright?” Beth had asked.

“Fine,” Mika muttered, shaking herself out of it and returning to work.

Beth had chalked it up to exhaustion and was considering the best way to force her into taking a break when Mika finally spoke up.

“Beth?”

“Yeah,” Beth responded instantly. She shut the sink off and turned to Mika who was now staring down at her feet. “What’s up?”

“I think I know the point we should jump back to.”

“Oh yeah?”

They’d already gone over the possibilities, several times in fact, and decided that their best option was to return to when they’d met up with Sarah and re-record the video message. Mika had argued it gave them the most direct control over their futures, so it was a bit of a shock to hear her now reconsidering.

“You remember I told you that I met Rachel Duncan?” Mika asked. Her voice was small, barely audible over the hum of the kitchen lights. “As a child. Before the fire.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

It had taken time, but slowly, Mika had begun to open up to Beth. About her past, her real name, even occasionally about her biggest fears.

“You serious?” Beth asked, realizing what Mika was suggesting. “That far back? You’re not thinking about…”

Beth paused, swallowing as she considered how far they were really willing to go to end this.

“No,” Mika replied, mercifully. “Even in the timelines without Rachel in charge, DYAD still hunted us. Rachel isn’t the problem. But maybe she can be the solution.”

“What do you mean?”

Beth quickly dried her hands as Mika considered her next words, then walked over and stood by her side at the desk. Mika looked up at her for a moment before lowering her gaze again.

“She was just a lonely girl then,” Mika said, even quieter now. “Like me. Maybe I could go with her. If I could be a sister to her, then maybe she wouldn’t see us as lab rats like the rest of them do.”

Mika stopped with a frustrated sigh, shaking her head.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“No, I get it,” Beth said. “You think she could help protect us from within DYAD. But it’s such a shot in the dark, isn’t it? I mean, you talked about wanting control, but jumping that far back, who the hell knows what could happen to the timeline from there? What makes you think it’ll work?”

Beth watched Mika raise her hand to her mouth and chew at her nails, pausing for a moment as though about to speak, then moving to the next finger.

“Just a feeling, I guess,” was what she eventually settled on.

“A feeling, huh?” Beth teased. There was more; she was sure of it. “Never really known you to trust your gut. Am I rubbing off on you or something?”

“You’ll think it’s stupid,” Mika muttered.

“Mika,” Beth sighed, placing her hand firmly on Mika’s shoulder. Mika’s eyes flitted to it then back to her feet. “This is life and death shit, okay? Tell me.”

Mika’s pulled her legs up to her chest, curling in on herself in embarrassment. She nodded and then spoke.

“I had… a dream,” she said. “Or… not a dream exactly. More like a voice inside my head. It’s hard to describe, but it felt real. I suddenly knew what I had to do. I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

Beth listened, skepticism giving way to understanding, her mouth gradually dropping open as things clicked into place in her mind.

“Did it feel like... a thought pushing through your brain and into your whole body?” Beth asked. MK twisted her neck up to face Beth, blinking in disbelief. “And a chill, like when we jumped back in time?”

“Yes!” MK said, lip trembling. “You’ve felt it too?!”

Beth _had_ felt it, or something like it, twice before. It had been easy enough at the time to blame it on the meds, but now, after everything, after Mika had felt it too…

MK’s laptop beeped, putting a sudden end to their conversation.

“Another email?” Beth asked.

MK nodded as she clicked through to another window and pulled up the message, sent from the same address (untraceable, Mika had discovered) as the other.

_Tonight. 10 PM._

_You’ll find 324B21’s guest at the apartment. Bring her in as well._

“Shit, okay,” Beth muttered. “I guess this is happening.”

Things still weren’t adding up. _Apartment? Cosima’s guest?_ Her eyes shifted to the clock in the corner of the screen. If they had more time, maybe they’d be able to make sense of it, but...

“10 PM, that’s in three and half hours. You ready to do this?”

She turned to Mika whose eyes were affixed to the screen, her legs hugged tight against her chest.

“Mika, you don’t have to come with me,” Beth said. One last plea.

Mika blinked once, twice, before turning to Beth.

“I’m going,” she said firmly, then brought her fingers back up to the keyboard. “I just have to look the code over one more time.”

“Okay,” Beth said. She’d done all she could to talk Mika out of it, but she could see she’d made up her mind.

Beth watched her for a moment (eyes darting across the screen, the slight movement of her lips as she read over the code), then left her to it, turning and walking to her room.

The lamp clicked to life, filling the room with dim light. Beth pulled open the drawer of her nightstand, sliding her journal aside to reveal the pistol underneath. She pulled it out and tucked it into her waistband, then began to push the drawer closed when a flash of red caught her eye. She reached in and picked up the fox mask, a wistful smile forming on her face as she turned it over in her hand. With a sigh, she lay it down gently back inside, then closed the drawer and walked back out into the apartment.

“No. This isn’t right.”

Mika was muttering to herself, the sound of it muffled by her hand in front of her mouth as she chewed on her nails.

“You okay?” Beth called.

Mika’s didn’t respond, only began rocking back and forth in her seat, her voice quickly becoming more frantic as she spoke to herself.

“It won’t work this way. It’s no good. Stupid, stupid, stupid…”

Beth had lived with Mika long enough to recognize one of her panic attacks. She dashed over and lowered to her knees beside her. She took Mika’s hand into her own, lowering the screen of the laptop with the other.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Look at me.”

Mika’s head slowly turned, trembling, to face Beth. Her eyes were wide with fear.

“You’re okay,” Beth assured her. “I’m right here.”

She gripped Mika’s hand tighter, drawing small circles with her thumb on the back of her hand.

“Just breathe, okay?”

Mika nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and drawing in a shaky breath.

“I’m scared too,” Beth admitted.

Mika leaned forward in her chair, placing her free hand on top of Beth’s. Beth reached up to her, placing her hand on Mika’s back and rubbing in gentle strokes. They stayed this way for a moment, fixed together, as Mika slowly calmed.

“I think I remember it, Beth,” she finally said.

“Remember what?”

“Dying.”

 

* * *

 

Mika eventually settled, and after one last forlorn look around the apartment, she and Beth headed out for the DYAD facility.

 _We’ll be back,_ Beth wanted to say, but it felt like an empty promise.

They posted up a fair distance from the building, but with two pairs of binoculars, they had a decent view of the front entrance and a side door leading to the parking lot. Beth watched the building while Mika checked the roads and surrounding areas for any trucks or vans DYAD could be using to transport their sisters.

“Cold, huh?” Beth asked, attempting to cut the tension, though she wasn’t sure whether it was for her or Mika’s benefit.

“I don’t mind,” Mika said. “It reminds me of home.”

Beth turned to Mika who was already looking back at her with a small smile. She was being brave for Beth’s sake, and the least Beth could do was return the favor. She smiled back, allowing herself, for the briefest of moments, to believe that everything would be alright.

As she raised the binoculars to her eyes, she immediately caught a flash of movement by the small hill just past the parking lot.

“Hang on, I think I’ve got something here,” she said.

She could just make out the shape of someone moving through the shadows. She watched like a hawk as her target deftly avoided patches of light that could reveal themselves.

“Come on, come on…” Beth muttered, impatient.

Finally, they made their move, slipping into the parking lot and behind the cover of a large van. Beth just managed to catch a brief glimpse of them under the glow of the streetlight overhead.

“Helena?!”

“What?” Mika whispered. “Where?”

Beth pointed over to the van, thoughts racing through her head. _The twins are in hand._ That’s what the email said. So how was Helena moving freely? Had she escaped somehow?

“Beth, look. The side entrance.”

Beth pushed her questions aside, shifting her gaze to the side door as a guard stepped out into the parking lot where Helena was lying in wait. Only a moment later, out of the corner of her eye, another flicker of movement in the darkness. _Someone else?_ Beth watched as they stepped forward into the light.

Of the myriad possibilities running through her mind, she couldn’t have anticipated this one.

“Who the hell is that?” Beth asked, stunned.

“It looks like…”

“Me.”

Even for a clone, the woman looked remarkably like Beth. Identical hair, identical coat. Beth watched her as she moved behind a row of cars, finally popping out when the guard stepped close, gun trained in his direction. Even the pistol looked like hers.

“What is going on?” Mika asked.

Beth first considered the craziest possiblity - that she was somehow seeing another version of herself, here from the future or another timeline - then quickly shook it from her mind.

“Jesus Christ, it’s Rachel,” she realized. “It has to be.”

Suddenly, it all made sense. Everything that had felt off in those emails, suddenly they were becoming clear.

“She’s leading them into a trap.”

Beth scanned the area past the parking lot and found what she’d been expecting: two figures in the dark waiting for their cue. Sarah and Cosima.

“What do we do?” Mika asked. “We have to warn them.”

Beth watched her impostor along with Helena take down the guard, then drag his limp body across the parking lot.

“That’s not the play,” Beth sighed. “Rachel wouldn’t have set this up without precautions. She’ll have guards ready to swarm at the drop of a hat. We reveal ourselves now and we’re as good as captured.”

“We can’t just let them be taken!” Mika said.

“I know.”

Sarah and Cosima had moved into the lot, joining the others. After speaking for a moment, they made for the side door

“Look,” Beth said. “The plan is the same. All attention is gonna be focused on them. That gives us a clear shot inside. Hopefully, our diversion gives them a chance to escape.”

Beth continued to watch as Rachel and the others slipped into the building. She could hear Mika shifting uncomfortably beside her.

“Okay,” Mika said. “I trust you.”

The sincerity of it hit Beth like a bullet to the chest. She knew it was true. Mika had always trusted her. Mika had trusted and trusted until she’d ended up here: about to rush headlong into a death trap. Because of course Beth knew what she was doing, didn’t she?

“Let’s go,” she said. No time for doubts. Not now.

They sprinted across the grass over to the far side of the building. With a boost from Beth, Mika was up and over the fence. Beth followed, adrenaline pumping life into her cold-numbed fingers as she climbed. She landed beside Mika with a soft thud, and then they were running to the door.

“Okay,” Beth whispered as they reached it, casting her eyes around their surroundings for any signs they’d been detected. Nothing but quiet.

Mika nodded, pressing her back against the wall beside Beth as she pulled out her phone.

“It will take a moment,” she said.

Mika would send a signal to her computer back at the apartment which would run the code. With a few quick taps and swipes of the screen, it was set. Beth pulled her pistol and flashlight from her coat, breathing deeply to steady her shaking hands. The two stood and waited, watching the red light of the keycard reader.

“Beth?”

Beth flinched, surprised by the sound of Mika’s voice.

“Yeah?”

_Breathe in. Breathe out._

She glanced over at Mika, her eyes focused on the door, bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

“Hey,” Beth said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I, um…” Mika swallowed, still staring blankly ahead. “I love you.”

Warm tears filled Beth’s eyes, quickly turning to ice in the cold.

_In. Out._

“Love you too, Mika.”

Finally, the red light flickered out. She exchanged a quick nod with Mika before pulling open the door and stepping forward into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veera and Rachel meeting as children, while never mentioned on the show, was shown in the fifth issue of the first series of Orphan Black comics (Rachel's issue). [HERE IS THAT.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMIe6OtUMAA7X-H.jpg)


	10. Claws and Teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/gTS37HI.png)  
> 

It was Rachel.

Ever since Sarah had woken up in this nightmare of a timeline, she’d been right in the middle of Rachel’s trap. She’d needed an anchor, something familiar in an unfamiliar world, and Rachel had been there to give that to her. A lie. Just the lie Sarah had needed.

Sarah tightened her grip around the pistol in her hand.

“You can put the gun down, Sarah,” Rachel said, her own pistol trained on Sarah. “It’s empty.”

Sarah fumed, instinct taking over her arm. She aimed at Rachel’s head and pulled the trigger. _Click. Click._

None of the guards so much as flinched. Rachel smiled. They were no threat to her. It was over. Rachel had won.

Sarah let the weapon clatter helplessly to the floor.

“You bitch,” she hissed, and it was as impotent as an empty gun.

“The knife in your pocket,” Rachel said, turning to Helena. “Put it down.”

Sarah turned to her sister, watched her reach into her coat and pull out the blade. She caught Sarah’s eye, then shot a quick, furtive glance down to her feet as she lowered it to the floor. _The knife in her boot._ It seemed Rachel didn’t know about it.

“Sarah?”

She looked to Cosima whose eyes had gone wide with fear.

“What do we do?”

“I dunno, Cos,” Sarah said, helpless. Cosima had trusted her. Helena had trusted her. And she’d led them both here. “I’m sorry.”

Cosima shook her head in disbelief, her bottom lip quivering.

“You have Dr. Cormier?”

Cosima and Sarah both turned back to Rachel, now addressing one of the guards by her side.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “She’s being brought in now.”

“No!” Cosima cried, and instinctively took a step forward before freezing again as the guards raised their weapons. “Please, leave her out of this.”

“Believe me, I did try,” Rachel said, voice dripping with acid. “She knew the risks when she decided to defy me.”

Rachel shut her eyes, breathing deeply before speaking again, calmer.

“No matter. I’ve finally managed to clean up her mess.”

“Rachel, please,” Cosima begged, and she fell to her knees under the weight of it all, desperate. “You can’t do this. No matter what DYAD did to you, I know they can’t have taken away your humanity.”

Rachel watched, seeming to consider for a moment, her face a blank. If she felt anything at all over what she was doing, empathy or remorse or pity, Sarah couldn’t see it.

“Have Dr. Nealon examine her,” she said calmly. “We should compare her results against the ones on file.”

Sarah and Helena looked on, helpless, as two guards approached Cosima, hoisted her to her feet and began leading her down the hall.

“Take Helena to her room,” Rachel continued. “And do be careful. She bites.”

The guards moved toward Helena cautiously, seeming to heed Rachel’s warning. Helena threw Sarah a knowing look before being dragged away.

“Dirty snake Rachel,” she growled. “You hide behind your lies.”

She spat at Rachel as she passed, hitting the sleeve of her jacket.

“Stop,” Rachel snarled.

The guards froze.

“Seeing as she’s so eager, we’ll have Helena examined first.”

Helena held her stare in Rachel’s direction, snickering as she was hauled away.

“Helena,” Cosima begged as she passed. Helena’s face softened. “Be careful. Please.”

The two were pulled apart, Cosima disappearing around a corner as Helena was led farther down the hall.

Rachel turned to Sarah, the last one remaining. She scanned her with her eyes, a look of contempt on her face as she considered what to do with her.

“Bring her this way,” she commanded, then turned and started down the hall.

Every instinct in Sarah was telling her to turn and run. She eyed the guns in the guards’ hands, considered whether Rachel would really go so far as to have her shot dead. With a nauseous feeling in her gut, she realized that she didn’t know.

She was led around a corner, just barely spotting the back of Cosima’s head in the distance as she was pulled down another hallway.

“Where are you takin’ me?” Sarah asked.

Rachel said nothing. They marched on in silence.

 

* * *

 

“Please,” Cosima whimpered, and it felt like the word was beginning to lose all meaning. She watched the guard, one of Rachel’s automatons, run his keycard over the lock, then pull open the deadbolt over the large metal door. “You can’t.”

The door swung open and Cosima’s jaw dropped open in horror. Her “room”, as Rachel dared to call it. The idea of it made her want to laugh until her heart stopped.

“We’re human beings,” she said, before being pushed roughly inside. The door clanged shut behind her. She whirled around, slamming her fist onto the cold metal with a dull thud.

“We’re human beings!” she screamed. Her legs gave out and she crumpled to the floor, weeping.

 

* * *

 

Sarah trailed behind Rachel, helpless as she was led into what looked to be a medical examination room, similar to where she imagined Helena was being taken.

“Sit,” Rachel commanded, pointing to the large chair in the center of the room, and Sarah was being shoved in its direction before she’d even had a chance to disobey. Not seeing another choice, she hopped up onto it, hesitating for a moment as she caught sight of the straps lining the sides.

“Restraints on, if you would,” Rachel said.

In an instant, the guards had descended upon Sarah, one holding her down as the other pulled the restraints tight around her.

“The fuck is this?!” she cried, helplessly squirming against the guard’s weight.

“I assure you, it’s only precautionary,” Rachel explained. “These men are trained to kill if necessary. So, you see, we can’t have you trying anything reckless, now can we?”

Sarah glanced first to the face of the man above her, his stare cold, then to the weapon at his belt.

“I only want to talk, Sarah,” Rachel assured her.

Sarah settled, choosing to believe her. What other option did she have?

Having fastened the final restraint around her ankle, the guards stepped away, leaving Sarah as good as paralyzed. Rachel looked her over once, nodding in satisfaction.

“Leave us,” she said.

The guards slipped out of the room in silence as Sarah watched Rachel pull off her coat, then walk over to the desk beside her. She picked up a tissue, grimacing at the mess Helena had left on her sleeve.

“I had hoped you’d have trained your dog better than this,” she said.

Sarah pulled against her restraints, chafing her skin.

“You’re nothin’ like Beth,” she said. “I shoulda seen it.”

“Yes,” Rachel agreed. She set her coat down on a chair in the corner. “It would seem none of you know Beth Childs as well as you claim.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Sarah said. “Enough to know she’d be sick hearin’ you use her name.”

Rachel stepped closer, smiling down at her.

“I suppose you were a more fitting replacement for her,” she said. “One worthless junkie for another.”

“Fuck you,” Sarah spat.

“I didn’t lie about everything, you know,” Rachel continued, unfazed. “The other Sarah, she was quite the sight when we found her, pulled unconscious from some back-alley drug den. She didn’t put up much of a fight once we’d given her someplace warm where she could drink herself into oblivion.”

Sarah swallowed. As much as she wanted to believe that wasn’t her, that this was another of Rachel’s lies, she knew from experience how far she was capable of falling.

“To her, you were the enemy,” Rachel said. “Once you’d hijacked her body, she was as good as dead.”

“You think I wanted any of this shit? Whatever’s inside me, I don’t want it, alright?”

“No?” Rachel asked. There was that smug smile again. “Would you tell that to Beth Childs? After all, it was this power that allowed you to save her life, was it not? What about Veera Suominen?”

“Don’t talk about them,” Sarah hissed.

“And your dear mother. Would you tell her it was a mistake to bring her back from the dead?”

“Shut up!” Sarah screamed, tugging violently at her cuffs, wanting desperately to drive her fist into Rachel’s face.

“Don’t misunderstand,” Rachel said, calm as ever. “I don’t blame you. I’m merely asking you to accept what we are.”

Sarah let her head fall back, shutting her eyes tight as she forced herself to calm. Her wrists stung.

“And what are we?” she asked.

“We are _gods,_ Sarah,” Rachel said. “We shape the universe; bend it to our will. If this power of ours can be harnessed, more easily controlled, consider what could be achieved.”

Sarah opened her eyes to Rachel’s stare, firm and unwavering.

“You’re insane,” she breathed. “You’ve lost it, Rachel.”

“Hm, disappointing,” Rachel sighed. “You still don’t understand at all.”

“So help me understand, yeah?” Sarah shot back. “You coulda gone back further. Before any of us came to this timeline, before we even knew about our power. We wouldn’t have even been a threat to you.”

She knew it was a horrible, selfish wish, but knowing Rachel could have ended up somewhere else, wreaking havoc on another Sarah’s timeline...

“Ah,” Rachel said. “Why do we rub a dog’s nose in the carpet after it makes a mess?”

Her face darkened. She leaned in close enough that Sarah could feel her breath on her cheek.

“It had to be you,” she hissed. “You had to know that you _failed.”_

Sarah looked into Rachel’s eyes, tried desperately to see the woman who had once helped her daughter escape, the woman who had once handed her the key to curing all of their sisters.

But she was gone. Burned away in the space between timelines.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Sarah said, and suddenly she was crying. “You’re our sister.”

Rachel laughed, hollow.

“I’d say I’m flattered, but I’ve seen the sort of person you call sister.”

“Please,” Sarah whimpered, and she could hear how pitiful she sounded, knew how much Rachel would hate her for it. “We can work something out.”

Rachel sighed deeply, looking down her nose at Sarah.

“Are you at all familiar with the story of the hares and the lions?”

Sarah could only stare blankly, prompting another sigh from Rachel.

“Unless you can tell me where Beth Childs and Veera Suominen are, you have nothing to offer me.”

“You don’t have them,” Sarah realized, laughing in Rachel’s smug face. She tugged at her restraints again, loud enough for Rachel to hear. “That what all this is about then? I dunno where they are, but I know they’ll find you. They’ll find you and bring you down, Rachel.”

“Oh, you poor, stupid girl,” Rachel said. “You really don’t understand, do you? It’s over, Sarah. No more changing the past. This is your reality now. No one is coming to save you.”

She leaned in again, locking eyes with Sarah.

“You will _die_ in this timeline.”

“Don’t count on it,” Sarah shot back.

Rachel’s hand was at her throat, sudden and violent, nails cutting into the skin of her neck, palm pressing down over her windpipe. Sarah writhed, gasping for air, rubbing the skin of her wrists raw as she fought to free herself. She looked up to Rachel, pleading with her eyes, but was met with only a blank mask.

Then, a flash. A chill. Sarah felt herself being pulled back into a memory.

She was on a couch in S’s living room. Rachel, her hair blonde and tightly coiffed as Sarah remembered it, stood above her. There was a sheet of paper in her hand, held out in Sarah’s direction.

“What’s all this?” she heard herself say as she took it.

She’d been through it enough times to know this was a memory, but this felt unfamiliar, foreign. She had never met Rachel like this, she was sure of it. Could she have been pulled into a memory from another timeline?

“An agreement,” Rachel said, a much softer tone to her voice here in the past. “We’re prepared to offer you and Helena complete exemption from the experiment. All we ask in exchange is information.”

Sarah tried to move her body, to stand and throw Rachel’s head against the wall. But she could only observe, trapped behind her other self’s eyes. Those were the rules.

“You wanna know what Beth’s got on you,” the other Sarah said.

“You don’t owe the others anything, Sarah,” Rachel explained. “Consider what’s best for your family. For Kira.”

Sarah heard the hidden threat in her daughter’s name. Her hand tightened around the contract, and then it was on the floor. She stood to meet Rachel’s eyes.

“You know what’ll happen if you touch my kid, yeah?” Sarah seethed. “Whatever you think we know, it’s so much more than that.”

“You cannot hope to win against these people, Sarah. There are forces--”

“Forces,” Sarah laughed. “Yeah, we’ll take ‘em down too.”

Rachel blinked. It was near imperceptible, but Sarah could see the panic in her eyes.

“I know what this shit is,” Sarah continued, motioning to the paper by her feet. “Lettin’ the only two fertile clones go? You’re desperate. I see right through you, Rachel. You’re scared.”

She expected Rachel to slip the mask back on, offer an impatient sigh or a condescending sneer, but she couldn’t even manage that. She shrank backward as Sarah stepped toward her.

“When we beat you,” Sarah said. “When we burn your whole _bloody_ company to the ground, what’ll you have left? What’ll you even _be?”_

The world flickered.

She was back in the present, Rachel’s face above her, twisted with rage. Both of her hands were around Sarah’s throat now, clutching tighter and tighter with every passing second.

 _Please,_ Sarah couldn’t say. _Stop._

Her body went numb. Her vision clouded. Rachel’s face began to drift further and further away.

Then…

_Black._

 

* * *

 

The guards were more disciplined than Helena had hoped, silent and stone-faced, just the way Rachel must have wanted.

“I have killed men stronger than you,” she taunted. “None as ugly.”

No reaction. She sighed, frustrated, air flapping between her lips as they continued down the hall.

Her opportunity came suddenly as the lights above flickered out, blanketing the hall in pitch black. She felt one of the guards grab for her, but she was faster, dropping to the floor and sliding the knife from her boot in one fluid motion. She rolled to one side, then stopped silent. She knew what to listen for when hunting in the dark.

Rachel had done her a favor by warning the guards about her. They would be panicked. Louder.

A sharp inhale of breath from her right. Exhale.

Helena pounced. She found the man’s head, then his throat. She drove the blade in, coating her hand in the heat of his blood. He fell to the floor, gurgling. Loud enough for the other guard to hear. _Good._

A flash of light. Helena dove for its source, plunging her knife into the dark space behind it. Flesh. She twisted until she heard the snap, then pulled out, grabbing the flashlight from his hand before letting him crumple to the floor.

 

* * *

 

Sarah coughed and sputtered as air rushed back into her lungs. _Alive._ She was alive. Slowly, feeling returned to her body: the exam chair and the restraints around her.

She could hear voices in the dark. Rachel and a guard, she imagined. Over the sound of her own breathing and the pounding in her head, she could only make out fragments.

“... happened?”

“... unclear… not responding.”

“... Helena...”

_Helena?_

Sarah shut her eyes, drew a deep breath in and held it, listening.

“Shoot to kill,” Rachel said.

A shiver ran down Sarah’s spine.

“Wait,” she coughed. “Rachel.”

She heard the door swing open, then Rachel’s boots fading off into the distance.

“Rachel!” she screamed. Useless. She threw all she had into pulling at her binds. Useless.

If she could at least warn her sister, maybe...

“Helena!” she cried.

A beam of light appeared in the corridor beyond the door. Sarah held her breath as it drew closer. The light turned into the room, ran along the floor, then up to her face.

“Sestra?”

“Helena!” she said a little too loudly, but she’d never been more relieved to hear her sister’s voice than in this moment. “Come on, let me outta here.”

Helena rushed over and began working at the restraints. Sarah brought her hand to her throat as it snapped free, rubbing at the spots that still stung.

“Rachel’s gone mad,” she said. “She tried to kill me. I think she ordered the guards to kill you.”

She watched Helena’s eyes shift back and forth in thought.

“We will be careful,” she said.

Sarah nodded. Helena handed her the flashlight before kneeling down to free her legs. Sarah angled the light down to her feet, breath catching as she saw the splash of red coating Helena’s arm and chest.

“Shit,” she said. “What happened to you? You alright?”

“Yes,” Helena said, shooting her a questioning look before following her gaze. “It is not mine.”

“Oh,” Sarah muttered, swallowing. “Right.”

With one final snap, she was free. She slipped out of the chair and moved with her sister to the door. They peered into the hallway for any signs of life. Nothing but black.

“I don’t know where they took Cosima,” Helena whispered. “The door outside is close. What do you want to do, Sarah?”

Sarah thought back to the look in Rachel’s eyes as she pressed down on her throat, full of hate and nothing else.

 _Shoot to kill,_ she had said.

This could be their only opportunity to escape, and she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this place as possible, but she’d never be able to live with herself knowing she left her sisters behind. She swallowed back her fear.

“We have to find them,” she said. “We all get out together.”

“Okay,” Helena said. “Stay close to me.”

Sarah nodded, following close behind as they stepped out into the hallway. Helena kept the flashlight angled down near her feet as they moved, careful to avoid detection. They soon reached a corner, hallways stretching off in two directions ahead of them.

“They took her this way,” Sarah remembered, pointing down the hall to their left. Helena nodded and they pressed forward.

Then it happened.

Sarah heard a click from behind her, soft enough that she almost thought she’d imagined it. She spun around to see a beam of light pouring out through one of the doors, quickly turning in their direction.

“Helena!”

The light hit her face, blinding her. A gunshot tore through the silence.

It didn’t hurt. Not like how she thought it would. She felt the impact, the force of the bullet hitting her chest. She saw the blood begin soaking through her clothes, bright red in the flashlight’s beam. She felt the liquid seeping into her lungs.

Her legs gave out underneath her. She heard her sister screaming as she fell. She hit the floor, and everything went black.

 

* * *

 

“Beth,” Mika whispered. “Look.”

Beth cast her flashlight over the thick metal doors lining the hallway, far different from the others they’d passed by. These were clearly designed to keep anyone from getting in. Or out.

“Come on,” she said, stepping over to the nearest one. The keycard reader lay dead, rendered useless thanks to Mika. She pulled the heavy deadbolt to one side and slipped open the door.

“Who’s there?!”

Beth ran her light over the small room. She found her huddled on a bed in the corner, another woman with their face, head shaved clean.

“It’s okay,” Beth said calmly. She shone the light back at herself and Mika, revealing their faces. “I’m Beth. This is Mika. We’re getting you out of here.”

“Really?” the woman asked, and she’d already started crying. She sprang from her bed to join the two at the door.

“Yeah,” Beth replied. “Just stay close and keep quiet, okay?”

The woman nodded and huddled close behind Beth, shaking with adrenaline.

“Beth?”

The voice was faint, but it was there. It sounded like it had come from the same room. Beth leaned in, peering around the corner to locate the source.

“It’s Ali!” the other woman cried. She dashed over to the next door in line. “We have to get her out too.”

“Alison?” Beth asked. She finally found the vent by the floor, leading into the next room.

“Is that really you, Beth?” Alison whimpered. Beth had never heard her sound so… broken.

“It’s me, Alison,” Beth said softly. “Hang on, okay? We’re getting you out.”

Beth stepped back out into the hallway, moving quickly to the door to Alison’s room. The other woman had already pulled open the lock and had her hand on the handle.

“Wait,” Beth whispered. She heard footsteps in the distance, faint but growing louder. She switched off the flashlight. “Get down.”

She heard Mika and the woman shifting beside her as they lowered themselves to the floor.

 

* * *

 

Alison pushed herself to her feet and moved to her cell door in anticipation. Soon, she’d be free. She and her sisters would be slipping out the back door and getting far, far away from this hellhole.

She heard the lock slide open. Then, silence.

A pit began to take form in her stomach. She pressed her ear to the door.

_A gunshot._

She jumped back, nearly tripping over the foot of her bed.

_Another shot._

Trembling, she inched back to the door, listening intently. She heard voices on the other side, muffled by the thick iron between them, but they sounded like her sisters. Still okay.

_A third shot._

It had come from farther away this time. Then a woman’s scream from nearby.

_No._

She heard her sisters’ voices quickly devolve into soft sobbing. A man’s voice barked over them. Slowly, they trailed off as they moved into the distance.

Alison was alone again, stranded in the deathly quiet. Shaking, she pushed open the door.

She stepped forward. Her foot hit the floor with a sickening wet smack. She leaned forward, peering around the corner. A flashlight lay flickering on the floor, its lens cracked open, every flash burning the horrible image into Alison’s mind. A stream of red flowed over the white tile, and at its source…

“Beth!”

Alison sank to her knees, running her hands along Beth’s coat, desperate. If she could find the wound, maybe… well, she wasn’t sure, but... but she had to do _something._

“Alison,” Beth choked. “I took one down, but… there were too many. They took the others."

The light flickered one last time, abandoning them to the darkness.

“Where are you hurt?” Alison asked.

Beth let out a cough, shallow and wet.

“Leave me,” she said.

“No,” Alison sobbed. “No!”

If she could just see what she was doing, if she weren’t so damn _useless_ for once…

A small glint of light appeared from around the corner at the far end of the hall.

“Run,” Beth said.

“I can’t leave you,” she said.

“Alison,” Beth said firmly. She gripped Alison’s arm with what felt like the last of her strength. _“Run!”_

Beth’s hand fell away. Alison watched as the light drew closer. She could hear footsteps, heavy on the floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She pushed herself off the floor, legs shaking as she stood.

She ran.


	11. Eloise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/cRBvTwe.png)  
> 

Eloise Harper was an exemplary student.

Always one of the first to class, eager to learn, a thorough understanding of the material no matter what the subject. Nothing was put off until the last minute; time was well-budgeted according to the length and complexity of each assignment. She hadn’t been gifted with an extraordinary memory, but she had practiced and perfected several techniques for retaining facts and figures, and as such, would rarely ever receive a less-than-perfect test score.

She wasn’t special. Eloise would never call herself that. But she worked hard.

While her fellow students were out, making friends over cheap alcohol, she worked. While they slept, she worked. When Eloise wanted to cry and scream and run away from it all, she worked.

Eloise Harper was an exemplary student.

“Which is why I expect more from you.”

Her English professor slid her paper back to her, face-up onto her desk, a large searing-red ‘B’ written into the corner.

 _I’ve been under a lot of stress,_ Eloise wanted to say.

“I understand,” she said instead. She didn’t have the courage to look, but all of her classmates were probably staring.

_It’s not fair of you to judge me differently than other students._

“I’m sorry,” she said.

_I have classes other than this one, you know. My workload has been very demanding lately. I work nights. You don’t even know that I have a job, do you?_

“You don’t have to apologize,” her professor said with a sigh. “You’re not letting anyone down but yourself.”

 

* * *

 

Eloise pushed open the door to her dorm room. She let her bag fall from her shoulders before collapsing onto her bed with a heavy sigh.

_You’re not letting anyone down but yourself._

She ran a hand through her hair, tracing with her eyes the molding of the cornice lining the ceiling. If she focused hard enough on the pattern, she could usually keep from crying.

Slowly, she felt a relative sense of calm wash over her, until predictably, her eyelids began to feel heavy. She wished she could sleep, if only she had the time. If only she ever had the time.

She shook herself awake, pushed herself up until her back was flush with the wall. She ran her eyes over her roommate’s side of the room, decorated with colorful posters and bibelots, small pieces of herself that she liked enough to put on display. Undeniably Abby. Eloise’s side of the room stood in stark contrast to her roommate’s: dull and empty. Undeniably Eloise. Her phone lay on the corner of her desk where she’d left it charging overnight. She still wasn’t entirely accustomed to carrying it around with her, much to Abby’s amusement.

“Did your mom ever let you out of the house?” she’d asked. She’d meant it as a joke, of course. She couldn’t have known.

With no small amount of effort, Eloise reached across the desk and picked up her phone.

One voicemail. Left just after one in the morning.

She sighed, letting her head fall back against the wall, hard enough to sting. Reluctantly, she pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hello, Eloise. It’s your mother.”

Eloise heard the slur in her voice instantly. Drunk again. She shut her eyes as warm tears trickled down her cheeks. So much for not crying.

“Forgive me, I didn’t realize it was so late. Though it’s not as if you would have answered regardless.”

She paused a moment, drew in a deep breath before speaking again.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t call to chastise you. I’ve had some time to think things over, and I still don’t believe that that school is right for you. If you come home, I know we can work out what’s best for you, together. I realize I’ve made mistakes, but I hope that you understand that fact, that I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for you.”

“I know,” Eloise mouthed, drawing in a shaky breath.

“Please come home, Eloise.”

Eloise shook her head. No matter how sad she felt for her mother, she couldn’t go back. It was the pity that was the worst part, the one thing pulling at her to return to that sheltered life, locked away from the rest of the world. No matter how controlling and overbearing, this was still her mother, hurting.

The door swung open, and she turned away to the corner, quickly wiping her face dry.

“Hey,” Abby said.

Eloise cleared her throat, willing the tears out of her voice.

“Hi.”

“What’s up?” Abby asked, crossing the room and throwing a heavy textbook onto her bed with a soft thud. “You okay?”

Eloise smiled and found she didn’t even have to force it. Of course Abby would notice. Of course she would care enough to ask.

“Yeah,” she lied. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

If she started laying out her problems, she’d never be able to stop. And would Abby even care to be around someone like that? If Eloise told her that she was her first and only friend, would that be the last she’d ever see of her?

“Mm,” Abby muttered, unconvinced.

 _Just tired._ Eloise realized how often she’d offered that up as an explanation. It wasn’t exactly untrue, but Abby deserved more than that.

“I got a ‘B’ on my English paper,” Eloise admitted.

“Oh my god!” Abby yelled, covering her mouth dramatically. “A ‘B’?!”

“Yeah,” Eloise replied. She watched Abby drop her hand from her face, revealing a sly smile. “Oh.”

Sarcasm. Eloise should have known.

“Sorry,” Abby said, when Eloise hadn’t reacted the way a normal person might. “That was shitty. I know how hard you worked on it.”

“No, it’s okay!” Eloise said, smiling reassuringly. “Sometimes I can’t see past my own little bubble, and I need you to show me some perspective.”

Abby smiled back, grabbing a seat on her own bed.

“Well, in that case, I think you work yourself too hard,” she said. “There’s a party at Sewell tonight. You should come.”

“I can’t,” Eloise replied, and she recognized the irony of it. “I’m working tonight.”

“So take the night off!”

Eloise wished it could be that simple. She needed the money. If it came down to it and her mother decided to stop paying her tuition, she would need the money.

“I think James is gonna be there,” Abby added with a smirk.

Eloise laughed, grateful for the opportunity to redirect the conversation.

“And?” she asked.

“And you like each other!” Abby chirped. “You said he was sweet. You think I don’t remember you calling him sweet?”

“Only because he apologized after asking if he could help me up the stairs.”

Her mistake had been thinking ‘sweet’ meant only just that, not some secret code word laced with hidden feelings and implications. Honestly, she wasn’t ready for any romantic feelings at this point in her life, for James or Abby or otherwise, and so they were never so much as considered. Of course, her friend would still needle her over it, no matter how many times she denied it. She supposed that’s what friends did.

“And how many other guys said they were sorry?” Abby asked knowingly.

“None,” Eloise admitted.

“Exactly,” Abby said, like it meant anything. “Guys are all gross and tactless, so if one pretends to be sorry, it probably means he thinks you’re cute.”

Eloise chuckled, rolling her eyes.

“Your sales pitch could use some work,” she said.

“Yeah, okay,” Abby replied. Eloise heard a faint buzzing sound just as Abby’s hand shot to her pocket. She pulled out her phone, glancing at the screen for a moment before hitting a button, then dropping it onto her bed.

“I’m just being honest,” she continued.

“You’re generalizing,” Eloise shot back.

“Maybe a bit,” Abby admitted with a smile.

She opened her mouth to say more, but was interrupted by her phone humming against her bedspread. She picked it up, frowning at the number on the screen before raising it to her ear.

“Hello?”

Eloise pulled out her own phone and checked the time: _4:12._ If she hurried, maybe she could manage coffee and a croissant before her next class. With a sigh, she pulled her legs to the side of her bed.

“Uh, yeah, she’s, um… can I ask who’s calling?”

Eloise paused as she was about to push herself to her feet, frozen by the bewildered look she was now receiving from Abby.

“Can you hold on a second?”

Abby brought the phone down, placing her hand over the receiver. She was still staring at Eloise, her expression slowly becoming more and more confused.

“What is it?” Eloise asked, concerned.

“It’s for you,” Abby whispered.

“What?” Eloise asked, sure she’d misheard.

Abby shrugged, shaking her head like she was hoping it would shake loose an explanation.

“It’s some lady,” she said. “She wouldn’t tell me her name, just said it was important.”

Eloise felt her stomach tumble over itself.

“Did she have an accent?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

“I don’t think so,” Abby answered, quirking an eyebrow. “Why?”

Eloise’s face twisted in thought. Who else would want to talk to her? How many people even knew who she was?

“I can tell her you’re not here,” Abby offered.

“No,” Eloise said, undeniably curious. “I’ll talk to her.”

It couldn’t hurt to take a phone call, could it? Maybe it really was important. She took the phone from Abby’s outstretched hand and pressed it to her ear.

“Hello?”

The line was silent. Eloise was about to speak again when she finally heard a voice on the other end.

“Eloise? Is this Eloise Harper?”

Not her mother, thankfully. A woman whose voice she didn’t recognize, though she couldn’t shake the feeling there was something familiar about it.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“I’m sorry,” said the other woman. She sounded frightened. “I, I can’t tell you who I am for the same reason that I called your roommate’s phone. I don’t know if it’s safe. I don’t know who might be listening.”

“Not safe?” Eloise repeated. The panic in the woman’s voice seemed genuine enough. “I don’t understand. Are you in danger?”

She raised her eyes to meet Abby’s, staring back at her with a mix of concern and confusion.

“I don’t…” the woman started before trailing off, voice shaking. “I don’t know anymore. Can we meet, Eloise? It’s very important that we meet. I’ll explain everything then.”

Eloise felt uneasy. She knew absolutely nothing about this woman, what kind of trouble she was in, how she knew Eloise, anything at all.

“I’m sorry,” Eloise said. “I want to help, but you have to understand how strange this sounds.”

“Please,” the woman begged, tears in her voice. Eloise’s heart ached.

“If there’s anything you can tell me,” Eloise offered. “Anything. Just so I have some idea what this is about.”

Eloise waited, listening to the woman’s muted breathing as she mulled it over.

“I know that your name isn’t really Eloise,” she said.

Eloise’s body tensed. Heat rushed to her face. She turned away from her roommate, pulling the phone into the crook of her neck.

“Please don’t call again,” she said.

Fingers shaking, Eloise ended the call. She held the phone out for Abby to take, still not daring to look up at her.

“What the hell was that?” Abby asked, concern evident in her voice.

“It was nothing,” Eloise said, and she hoped it sounded convincing. “Just a prank.”

“A prank,” Abby repeated. It was obvious she wasn’t buying it.

“I have to get to class,” Eloise said, quickly pushing herself to standing.

“You’re shaking,” Abby pointed out.

“I’m fine,” Eloise snapped, and she was already halfway out the door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

She turned the corner, marching as quickly as she could down the hall. She didn’t look back.

 

* * *

  

 _Painting,_ the one class Eloise had chosen just for herself. Ever since she was little, it had been a source of calm for her, something she desperately needed these days. It was enough to push the strange phone call further and further to the back of her mind with every stroke of brush on canvas.

The teacher approached from behind her, glancing at her work over her shoulder.

“Very good, Eloise,” she said with about as much emotion as this morning’s physics lecture.

“Thank you,” she replied.

Eloise pulled her head back from the canvas, running her eyes over the painting as a whole. She’d captured the image of the classroom’s houseplant well enough, but only just that. She could already imagine the upcoming critique, just the same as all the others, watching each of her classmates present their piece, a fantastical dreamscape or something bold and abstract. And then Eloise and her plant.

 _The colors are nice,_ one student would say.

_I love the shading._

_Very realistic._

Eloise would accept the compliments with a thank you and a polite smile and pretend she didn’t hate what she’d made, hate that even now, she couldn’t seem to unshackle herself from what was safe, ordinary.

She looked down to her palette, to each and every color in turn, before dipping her brush back into the green.

 

* * *

  

It was late in the afternoon by the time Eloise arrived back at her dorm, and there was a relaxed mood in the halls. For everyone aside from Eloise, of course. Half an hour until she had to leave for work. It would probably be worth getting some studying in beforehand. English, since it was apparently her worst subject.

“Hey.”

Eloise continued to walk, head down, before catching the girl’s stare out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh, hi,” Eloise managed. She’d seen this girl in the halls before. _What was her name?_ _Should she know her name?_ “I’m Eloise.”

 _Stupid._ The girl looked at her like she’d grown a second head.

“Oh, yeah, um, I think your mom is here looking for you?” the girl said.

“What?” Eloise choked. Her face felt hot. If her mother had bothered to make the trip down, that could only mean Eloise’s worst fears were coming true.

“Yeah, she looked pretty freaked out,” the girl said, but Eloise had already started moving past her. She offered a quick ‘thank you’ over her shoulder before quickening her pace.

She mumbled to herself as she walked, rehearsing.

 _Mother, I’m happy here._ A lie.

 _Mother, I’ve made lots of friends._ No.

_Mother, I can’t go back to that life._

Eloise rounded the corner and froze at the sight in front of her. An older woman was pacing back and forth in front of the door to her room. She was dressed in a thick coat, patchwork scarf and colorful knit gloves. Brown hair poked out from underneath her beanie, greying slightly at the sides. In other words, this was definitely not her mother, though she could understand the confusion.

This woman had Eloise’s face.

She met Eloise’s stare, something fearful and hopeful in her eyes.

“Eloise,” she blurted, taking a step toward her before seemingly thinking better of it. “I’m sorry to just show up like this. I thought maybe if you saw my face...”

Eloise recognized her voice. The woman on the phone. She sounded even more panicked in person.

“I really needed to talk to you,” she added.

“Okay,” Eloise said, finally finding her voice, small as it was.

“Okay,” the woman sighed, relieved. “Can we, um, go somewhere…”

“My room,” Eloise offered, motioning her aside.

The woman quickly stepped out of the way, casting a nervous glance down the hallway behind her. Eloise unlocked the door and stepped inside. The woman slipped by her and immediately began pacing the short length of the room. Eloise stood by the door, desperately fighting the instinct to run as she waited for her to speak.

“I guess I should start with my name,” the woman said. She brought her legs together, forcing herself to stop pacing, even as she continued to vibrate with nervous energy.

“I’m Alison. Alison Hendrix. Have you heard that name before?”

Eloise shook her head.

The woman, Alison, let out what sounded like a disdainful laugh.

“So, she never mentioned me,” she muttered to herself.

Eloise thought to ask who she was referring to, but Alison was already speaking again.

“You know what we are to each other, don’t you?” she asked. “Why we have the same face?”

Eloise swallowed. Her throat had gone dry.

“Clones,” she croaked. “Project Leda.”

It had been years since she’d heard the words, much less said them out loud, though her entire life had been dictated by who and what she was. Fitting that just as she was taking her first steps toward becoming a normal person, her clone would show up at her doorstep.

“That’s right,” Alison said.

“I don’t understand,” Eloise said. “I didn’t think there were any still… I didn’t think there were any left.”

“Is that what your mother told you?” Alison asked. There was something hateful in the way she asked.

Eloise stayed quiet, cautious over where the conversation was heading.

“Well, I’m still here,” Alison said, almost defiant. “And I think that, maybe, my sisters are still out there somewhere. _Our_ sisters.”

Her gaze fell to Eloise’s leg brace and held for a moment, something soft forming in her eyes, different from the way other people stared.

“Charlotte,” she said, stepping forward and gently taking her hand. “Please. I need your help.”

 _Charlotte._ Another name she expected never to hear spoken aloud again. She’d had to leave it behind a long time ago, back when she was naive enough to believe she was more than just some failed experiment.

“I don’t know what I can do,” she said.

“You can tell me where your mother is,” Alison said, and there was that tone in her voice again. “She’ll know where they are.”

“She doesn’t,” Eloise tried to point out, but it seemed Alison had stopped listening, instead staring down at their hands, still joined together. Alison squeezed tighter, a look of confusion forming on her face. Rattled, Eloise pulled away.

“Why do you think my mother would know?” she asked, attempting to draw her back to the conversation.

Alison continued to stare at her hand for moment, lost in thought, before inhaling sharply, snapping herself out of it.

“Do you know what DYAD did to us?” she asked. “Did your mother tell you?”

Eloise shook her head. It was a question she’d learned to stop asking her mother after receiving countless variations of the same answer.

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she would say, her face darkening. “I will never let anything happen to you.”

“They kidnapped us,” Alison said. She turned her head, staring off into space as she spoke. “They kept us in small cells. Like prisoners. Like _animals._ They shaved our heads, performed experiments on us.”

Eloise felt sick. She knew from the way her mother had refused to speak of it that it had to have been bad, but she never could have imagined this.

“I’m so sorry,” she offered, for whatever good it did. “That sounds horrible.”

“It was… nine years ago now,” Alison continued. “The last time I saw one of my sisters. Beth. She was bleeding out on the floor, shot helping me escape. She died saving my life.”

Eloise felt tears begin to prick at her eyes. She opened her mouth to offer another useless apology, then reconsidered. Alison turned back to her, jaw clenched. There was something fierce in her eyes.

“Do you know who was behind all of it?” she asked. “You do, don’t you?”

“No,” Eloise whimpered. She took a step back, pressing a hand to the wall to steady herself. She felt dizzy all of a sudden.

“Charlotte,” Alison said. “Is Rachel Duncan your mother?”

“You’re wrong,” Eloise said. Her legs felt like rubber. Her head felt like it was about to explode. “She wouldn’t do that.”

“She _did_ do it!” Alison snapped. “All of it!”

“Please,” Eloise whispered. Her hands had gone numb.

“Rachel Duncan took _everything_ from me!” Alison screamed. Her voice was drifting farther and farther away, an echo at the end of a tunnel.

Eloise tried to speak but the words wouldn’t reach her mouth. The world spun around her. She fell backwards--

 

* * *

 

Eloise’s eyes fluttered open. She recognized the ceiling of her dorm room above her. She groaned, running a hand through her hair, tracing with her eyes the molding of the cornice lining the ceiling. If she focused hard enough on the pattern, she could usually--

“You’re awake,” a voice said from her side. “Thank goodness.”

Eloise tilted her head, blinking into the sunlight pouring in through the window. Strange. They usually kept the blinds down.

“How are you feeling?”

She looked up into Alison’s face above her, the memory of their meeting suddenly flooding back to her.

“I’m alright,” Eloise said. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, eyes falling to her legs, elevated by a couple of pillows. Her head swam.

“A little dizzy,” she admitted. “I passed out?”

“Yes,” Alison said. She reached over to Eloise’s desk to grab a glass of water. “Here.”

Eloise realized suddenly how thirsty she was. She shifted to her side and took the glass. She downed it in one gulp.

“Thank you,” she panted.

“I’m so sorry,” Alison said gently. “I got carried away. I know that was a lot to take in.”

“No, it wasn’t just that,” Eloise said. She paused as she realized she was about to grumble over schoolwork to a woman who had had her entire life torn apart.

“It’s been a long day, that’s all,” she said.

Her troubles suddenly felt trivial. She was supposed to be leaving for work soon and she couldn’t seem to muster up the will to care.

Alison nodded. Her fingers seemed to twist around themselves with worry. She picked at her nails.

Eloise took a look around the room. It looked tidier than usual. Abby’s bed was made perfectly.

“Oh,” Alison said, noticing Eloise’s stare. “I’m sorry. Sometimes, when I don’t know what to do with myself, I clean.”

“It’s okay,” Eloise laughed. “I don’t think Abby will mind.”

She watched Alison’s face soften into a smile. For a moment, the horrible reality of the situation seemed to fade into the background. Even still, she knew it couldn’t last.

“Did my mother really do all those things?” she asked. She felt her eyes begin to sting again with tears.

“I’m sorry, but yes,” Alison said. The anger seemed to be gone from her voice.

“I always knew there were things she was hiding from me,” Eloise recalled. “She said she was just trying to protect me. I believed her.”

“Maybe she was, in her own way,” Alison said, and Eloise could hear the pain behind her words.

“Could you tell me about them?” Eloise asked. “Your sisters?”

“What about them?”

“I don’t know,” Eloise replied, shaking her head. “Anything. I just want to know what they were like.”

“Alright,” Alison said, fidgeting nervously. She pulled the chair out from under Eloise’s desk and took a seat, teetering on the edge. Her eyes darted around the room as she thought.

“Beth was a police detective,” she began. “She lived in Toronto.”

She paused, shaking her head, resetting.

“She protected us, in so many ways. Even when it was more than she could take, she fought to keep us safe.”

Eloise heard the fondness with which Alison spoke about her sisters. She heard in her voice the weight of all the years she’d spent without them. She heard the empty space in her heart.

“Cosima was a brilliant scientist, always full of life, always with a smile on her face,” she said. She paused here, flashing a smile of her own at Eloise. “You’d like her. She was fast friends with everyone. Even someone like me.”

"Helena…” Alison’s face dropped. “The poor thing, she suffered so much for so long. She came into our lives angry and confused and, and _hurting._ Just hurting so much. But she had so much love in her heart, so much kindness, just tucked away until she found her family."

"MK, Mika… I, I never really knew her, but I know about all she did for us. She was just a kid when she had her life ripped apart, when she had to hide herself away.”

Alison reached up to her face, brushing a tear away.

“I can understand now what it must have been like for her, alone for all those years.”

Eloise hesitated for a moment before reaching out and placing her hand on top of Alison’s.

“And then there’s Sarah,” she continued, her face growing a little brighter. “We didn’t exactly get along at first. She was stubborn, angry, thought the world was out to get her. In that way, I guess we weren’t all that different. But she was also fierce. And so, _so_ brave. She fought for us. She held us together.”

Alison breathed deep, tears now freely flowing down her cheeks. She had stopped bothering to wipe them away.

“What about you?” Eloise asked.

“Me?” Alison asked, stunned. “I don’t know if there’s much to say. I… I was never the smartest or the bravest of us. I was never the most kind. I could be pretty awful at times.”

She inhaled, straightening up in her seat.

“But I was a good mother,” she said. “I was always proud of that.”

Perhaps it was because they shared the same face, but Eloise couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to have Alison as a mother. There was something comforting about the thought.

“We were all _something_ once,” Alison sighed. “But that was a long time ago.”

Eloise could picture them now in her mind, the family she had never known. They had only ever been a concept to her -- Project Leda -- but now they felt real. How many of them were still out there, lost and adrift like Alison? There was no way Eloise could run away from this now.

“I’ll take you to my mother,” she decided.

“You will?” Alison asked disbelievingly, a grateful smile forming on her face.

Eloise nodded.

“I have to hear the truth from her,” she said.

Newly determined, she pushed herself up to sitting, fighting the dizziness, and pulled out her phone. She quickly found the number and dialed. Alison’s brought her hands over her mouth, watching intently. The phone rang once. Twice.

_Click._

“Eloise?”

After everything, she thought her mother’s voice would sound different to her, that she might sound like someone capable of doing all those terrible things. But she was still only just her mother, a tinge of hope in her voice at receiving her daughter’s call.

“Hello, Mother,” Eloise managed to say. “I need to see you.”


	12. The Ones Who Remain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/BdtX0AL.png)  
> 

Charlotte hit the elevator button. Alison’s hands were shaking so much, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to even if she’d tried. She watched each number light up above the door as they ascended. It was something else to focus on.

_Third floor._

It was all happening so fast, faster than Alison had really prepared herself for. Rachel had dropped everything, whatever that meant these days, at Charlotte’s call, hopping on the first flight into town. She’d rented out an apartment for Charlotte in the city months ago, even after she insisted on living in the dorms with the other students. That’s where they agreed to meet.

_Fifth floor._

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Charlotte’s entire body trembling. Poor girl. If she knew what Alison had in her purse, would she have agreed to bring her here? Probably not. Alison swallowed back her doubts. This was no time for cold feet. Not after all this time. Nine years, but who was counting? Alison Hendrix, that’s who.

_Seventh floor._

The doors opened and Charlotte rushed forward on what had to be pure adrenaline, turning down the hall to the left. Alison followed a few steps behind, worried Charlotte might change her mind at any moment.

Charlotte stopped at the door and pulled out her key. She let out a huff, frustrated, as it scraped against the lock. Alison reached a hand out and laid it on Charlotte’s shoulder. She took the hint, sucking in a deep breath to steady herself, then slipped the key in.

The door opened.

The apartment was more or less what Alison had pictured, lavish and pristine; it was clear Charlotte had barely set foot in the place, if at all. The soft sound of classical music filled the large living area, drifting in from somewhere unseen. Charlotte stepped inside, cautious, Alison following close behind. They exchanged a nervous look before separating, Charlotte disappearing down a hallway while Alison, unsure of what to do with herself, made for the far corner of the room, stepping behind a large sectional. She stood there, her entire body shaking, and waited.

“Hello, dear.”

Alison tensed at the sound of Rachel’s voice echoing from another room, faint but definitely hers. There was something kind in it, and it only made Alison angrier.

“Have you eaten?” she asked. “I can have something delivered. Whatever you like.”

“No,” Charlotte said, tense. “Thank you.”

Alison clutched her purse tighter.

“I’m glad that you called,” Rachel said. “I hope everything is alright at school.”

“Mother,” Charlotte croaked. Her voice shook. “I need to… show you something.”

“Is something the matter?” Rachel asked. Alison could hear the clacking of her shoes against the hardwood, slowly drawing closer.

Part of Alison wanted to run and hide, but she wouldn’t let herself. Rachel had to know. She was here. She was _alive._

She forced herself to walk, moving into the center of the room.

Charlotte stepped out from around the corner.

Then… Rachel.

Not the same Rachel she’d met once long ago in a DYAD office. The Rachel in front of her was dressed in a loose grey sweater and trousers, her hair grown out past her shoulders. She looked altogether softer than the old Rachel, almost harmless.

Alison knew better.

Rachel stopped dead as she caught sight of her, a flash of something Alison couldn’t quite name crossing her face before quickly vanishing.

“Hello, Rachel.”

Rachel returned Alison’s stare, regarding her for only a brief moment before turning back to Charlotte.

“You’ve brought a guest,” she said calmly.

“She’s told me a lot, Mother,” Charlotte said.

“Yes,” Rachel sighed. “I imagine she would have.”

After nine years, Alison thought she’d have more to say in this moment, but every word she’d dreamed of spitting in Rachel’s face seemed to have abandoned her.

“Please,” Charlotte begged. “Please tell me you didn’t do all those things she says you did.”

Rachel drew a deep breath before speaking.

“I promise you it is not as simple as she may have led you to believe. If you’ll allow me to explain--”

“So it’s true,” Charlotte said, slowly stepping back from her mother, a look of horror forming on her face. “You locked up all those women. Dozens of them, just like you. Just like _me.”_

“But not you, darling,” Rachel said, and Alison wished she could ignore the quiver in her voice. “Never you.”

“How could you?” Charlotte whimpered, and she was crying. “You’re horrible.”

“Please, Eloise--”

“My name is Charlotte!” she screamed, and in an instant, she was gone, the front door slamming shut behind her. Her footsteps disappeared down the hall.

And just like that, they were alone.

Rachel didn’t move, her gaze frozen to the empty space where Charlotte had been standing.

Alison felt a pang of guilt, a sharp twist in her chest. For Charlotte. She told herself it was only for Charlotte.

“I should have known there was something wrong when she called,” Rachel said, still not looking at Alison. “But we do have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to our children, don’t we?”

 _Our_ children.

Alison grit her teeth.

“Rachel,” she said, as calmly as she could. “You’re going to tell me where my sisters are.”

Rachel slowly turned her head to the corner of the room. Alison followed her stare. Two large easels stood by the window, seemingly untouched.

“We used to paint together when she was younger,” Rachel said, voice wistful. “I’m not sure she even still enjoys it, but I had hoped that… Well, that doesn’t much matter now, does it?”

“Did you hear me?” Alison asked. She hated how pitiful she sounded. She cleared her throat, digging up resolve. “Tell me where they are.”

“You’re a mother, aren’t you?”

_That was it._

Shaking with anger, Alison reached into her bag and pulled out the pistol. She pointed it in Rachel’s direction.

“How dare you ask me that?”

Alison’s hand may as well have been empty for as little consideration as Rachel gave it: a slight tilt of her head before turning away again.

“Yes, I suppose that was a rather insensitive question,” she said flatly. She began walking in the direction of the kitchen island.

Alison stepped closer, breathing deep to steady her arm. It didn’t work.

Rachel reached underneath the counter, pulling out a bottle of red wine.

“Your sisters are dead,” she said.

Alison’s heart fell into her stomach.

“You’re lying,” she spat.

“I wish I were,” Rachel said, and she seemed to mean it. “Project Leda was on its last legs when I took over. They called us obsolete.”

She laughed, a sour sound. She pulled out a corkscrew, began twisting it into the bottle.

“I was never under any illusion that they respected me, saw me as anything more than just another clone, one of many. They handed me a project they considered defunct. It was their way of keeping me silent, satisfied. If they had any idea of the power we held inside of us--”

“What does this have to with anything?” Alison interrupted. “I didn’t come here to listen to you feel sorry for yourself.”

Rachel offered up a small, bitter smile. The cork slid out of the bottle with a pop.

“The higher-ups were less than impressed when they found out what I had done to the project. They told me I was wasting resources with little to show for it. They went behind my back and shut the entire operation down. Every Leda clone in custody, terminated.”

“They killed them,” Alison muttered.

“Short-sighted _fucking_ cretins,” Rachel hissed, hand tightening around her wine glass. Alison half expected it to shatter. “They pushed me out, forced me into early retirement. I was allowed to take Charlotte with me. A ‘professional courtesy’, they called it.”

“So you didn’t get to complete your big master plan, whatever that was,” Alison snapped. “At least you get to live your life. Forgive me if I don’t seem sorry.”

“I suppose I can’t blame them entirely,” Rachel sighed. “There was certainly more I could have done. I’m sure you realized it, that Eloise doesn’t have our ability.”

“Yes,” Alison admitted.

“That was a major discovery,” Rachel said. “With that, we had something to test against. What was it inside of us that didn’t exist inside of Charlotte? If we could find it, then we could isolate it. We ran tests, but it wasn’t enough. She needed to be studied more extensively.”

“God,” Alison muttered as she realized what Rachel was suggesting.

Rachel sighed. She picked up the bottle and began to pour herself a glass.

“In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her.”

“And what, am I supposed to be impressed?” Alison asked. “That you didn’t imprison an innocent child? Congratulations, Rachel. You found the one line even you wouldn’t cross.”

Rachel chuckled to herself.

“Would you care for a drink?” she asked.

“I don’t drink,” Alison replied, almost on impulse, and she hadn’t realized how ridiculous it seemed until she said it out loud, that this was one thing that she had held onto for all this time. One small bit of control she still held over her life.

“Hm,” Rachel mumbled. “Admirable.”

If there was any judgment in her tone, Alison couldn’t hear it.

“There have to be others, Rachel,” Alison said. “They can’t all be dead. I refuse to believe that.”

“Helena,” Rachel said. “ She is the last Leda unaccounted for.”

“She’s alive?” Alison breathed. She allowed some small flicker of hope into her chest.

“It’s likely,” Rachel said.

Alison’s hope slowly turned to shock, then anger as Rachel recounted the details of that night: how Helena had been there, inside the facility, along with Sarah and Cosima, how Rachel had led them there as Beth under the guise of rescuing Alison, how Beth and MK had been an unexpected wrinkle in her plan.

How Sarah had been shot trying to save her. _Just like Beth._

“She managed to escape with Helena,” Rachel explained. “But she couldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Sarah made it out?” Alison asked. “So she could still be alive?”

“No,” Rachel said firmly. “I saw the security footage. She would have died within minutes. If she had been taken to a hospital nearby, we would have known.”

“But there’s a chance,” Alison said, frantic. “There’s still a chance. There has to be. You never saw her body.”

Rachel shook her head, something like pity in her eyes.

“How much longer, Alison?” she asked. “How many more years will you waste searching for a way back?”

“As long as it takes,” Alison spat.

“There are four Ledas left,” Rachel said. “Three with our ability. Only three. You do understand what that means, don’t you?”

Alison shook her head in defiance. It wasn’t true. It just _wasn’t._

Rachel ran a shaking hand through her hair, laughing wryly to herself. She raised her wine glass.

“To us,” she said. “The ones who remain.”

Alison watched in shocked silence as Rachel tipped the glass to her lips, downing the contents in seconds. She lowered the glass to the counter before sliding it away from herself in seeming disgust.

“Infinite power, forever just out of our reach,” she droned. “Time marches on for us, just the same as everyone else. The least you can do is accept it. Do what you can to build a new life for yourself.”

“What?” Alison asked. She laughed, hollow. “What kind of a life could that be?”

Rachel sighed, considering for a moment.

“Your children,” she offered. “DYAD doesn’t have much of a hand in our lives anymore. They wouldn’t be hard to track down. I’m certain--”

“You think I haven’t looked?” Alison snapped. “I already found them.”

Alison shut her eyes, swallowing back her tears at the memory: parking outside that house, twice as big as any she’d ever owned, and laying eyes on the two of them. Gemma and Oscar, years older, laughing at the dinner table with a group of strangers. _Their family._

“They’re not my children anymore.”

Rachel arched an eyebrow.

“They’re rightfully yours, Alison.”

Alison snapped, springing forward until the gun was a foot from Rachel’s forehead.

“No, Rachel,” she seethed. “They _were_ mine. But then you took them away from me. Because that’s all you know, isn’t it? You take and you take and you _take,_ because you can. But what gives you the _right,_ Rachel? You, you stand there and act like we’re the same? You had every chance to be a good mother to Charlotte, and you pushed her away. Because you’re poison. You ruin everything you touch.”

Alison drew in a sharp breath as she finished, attempting to steady the gun in her hand.

For a moment, Rachel only stared back at her, stone-faced. A soft symphony was playing from another room. Every note of it sounded wrong.

“Well then,” she said flatly. She turned and stepped out from behind the counter. Alison backed away, pistol outstretched as Rachel approached.

“I’m afraid that’s all I have for you,” Rachel said. Another step forward. “You came seeking answers and I have provided them, such as they are. The question now becomes, what do you plan to do with that gun?”

Alison’s back hit the wall. Rachel stopped, no more than a few feet away.

“You think I won’t shoot?” Alison asked.

“On the contrary,” Rachel said. “There was a time when I considered Helena an aberration, but perhaps it is something in our blood that drives us to kill.”

Rachel met Alison’s eyes. Alison swallowed.

“You must hate me very much for what I did to you,” Rachel said. “To your family.”

Alison’s face tightened. The gun rattled in her hand.

“You’re worried about Eloise,” Rachel realized. “You shouldn’t be. Everything I own will be passed down to her. I’ve already made the arrangements.”

A tear fell down Alison’s cheek, and she didn’t know why. She wiped it away, furious.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Rachel offered only a deep sigh in response, turning away. Alison followed her stare to the easels in the corner.

“I do hope you will check in on her, every now and then,” Rachel said. There were tears in her voice. “Just to be sure she’s alright. She… she is the very best part of me.”

Rachel turned back to her, something painfully desperate in her eyes. Alison nodded in assurance.

“She’s a very sweet girl, Rachel,” she offered.

Rachel’s eyes fell to the gun, holding for a moment. She began to lower herself to her knees.

“Wait--” Alison protested, but Rachel cut her off with a curt shake of her head.

“I don’t suppose…” Rachel whispered. “You’ll allow me one final memory?”

Alison bit down hard on her lip, considering only for a second, before rolling up the sleeve of her left arm. She passed the gun to her other hand, then held out her wrist. Cautiously, Rachel reached up and took it, lowering her head and closing her eyes. Alison inhaled deeply, then followed suit.

Ice tore through her veins. Her mind shattered, reformed.

She was falling, hurtling toward the ground at a dizzying speed. She tried to brace herself but couldn’t seem to move her body.

The impact never came. Suddenly, she was rising again.

 _A swing._ She was sitting on a swing. She felt the curve of the plastic underneath her, the thin rope in her hands.

A large playground structure stood a few yards in front of her, packed with children running and screaming. She recognized this place, the park down the street from her childhood home in Brantford. They’d moved away when she was in second grade.

Sure enough, she could see and feel her legs, a child’s legs, kicking desperately as she swung. At the highest point, she felt herself tentatively stretch a hand out to the tree branch above her, just barely out of reach.

She remembered the day she was finally able to grab it, how it had snapped off in her hand, sending her plummeting to the gravel beneath her. The fall had left her with nasty scrapes up and down her arms and back, and she’d had her television privileges taken away for a week after that, but she had never been prouder than when she’d told her class about it the next day.

Then, the vision faded. Rachel’s hand fell from Alison’s wrist. A single tear ran down her cheek.

The symphony had begun to build to a crescendo.

“Thank you,” Rachel whispered, nearly drowned out.

Alison tried to find the words, to pick out any one of the million thoughts running through her mind. She couldn’t.

Rachel looked up at her. She nodded.

Alison had imagined this moment more times than she could ever hope to count. It had filled her thoughts, her dreams, her entire life. It had kept her moving, fighting. It had kept her sane.

So why was she hesitating?

Trembling, she inched forward until the muzzle of the gun was pressed against Rachel’s forehead. Rachel shut her eyes. Alison reached her thumb up, pulled back the safety. Her finger hovered, fluttering over the trigger.

The music stopped.


	13. No End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/FohCTyf.png)  
> 

Helena’s senses went dead. She launched herself forward, slicing into the darkness. She brought her knife down. Again. And again. _And again._

She was screaming. She could hear it now, she could feel it ripping and tearing through her body, wearing her throat ragged. Her knife came down again, harder. _Harder._

Then, a blinding flash. Everything was bathed in light. Helena kept cutting. Slowly, the world came into focus.

 _Red._ Everywhere, red. A river of red running over the floor. Thick, angry ribbons of red on the walls. Red up and down her body.

Beneath her, a heap of meat and bone, strips of cloth. A person. If they could be called that anymore.

“Helena…”

She turned. Her sister lay on the ground, one hand clutching her chest, the other pawing desperately at the wall.

“Sarah!”

Helena sprang to her side, helping her up to sitting. Her eyes were like glass, her skin pale even against the sheer white of the walls.

“It will be alright, Sarah,” she said.

Sarah could only offer a small groan in response. Her shirt was soaked. Helena reached out, pressing her hand down on Sarah’s over her chest.

“Hold it tight there,” she said. Sarah nodded weakly.

Helena wiped the red off her blade, began to cut at her own clothing. _Stop the bleeding._ They would figure out the rest later. She carved out a section of padding from her coat and a stretch of fabric from her shirt. She rolled the bottom of Sarah’s shirt up over her stomach.

“Okay, sestra,” she said.

Sarah’s hand fell away, a small rush of blood escaping as Helena moved in to replace it. She reached behind Sarah, tying the bandage tight around her back.

“Helena,” she moaned, and Helena hadn’t missed the sound of it, one of her sisters afraid and clinging to life.

“Don’t try to speak,” Helena said. “We will find the others, and we will jump. To another time.”

Any time that wasn’t this one.

She carefully hoisted Sarah onto her back, then began to move to the end of the hall. The sound of her sister’s pained wheezing filled her ear. Once she reached the end, Helena peered around the corner. Thick, iron doors lined the hallway. This had to be where Rachel was holding their sisters.

Helena reached into her pocket and pulled out the keycard she’d grabbed off of one of the guards. She moved to the nearest door and ran it over the reader.

Nothing.

She swiped again.

Nothing. The light by the door was red, static.

She moved to the next one, swiped again. Red.

“No,” she muttered.

Rachel must have locked the place down. She pulled helplessly at the handle, then stopped when she heard footsteps from somewhere behind them. She stayed quiet and listened. They were distant but getting closer.

Helena weighed her options. She’d need to find a control room. Disable a guard, have him take her there, then fight her way back?

She scanned the hallway and quickly found the camera staring back at her. They knew where she was. She didn’t stand a chance against them, especially with Sarah in her condition. No, there was only one option.

She moved, ducking into a stairwell, identical to the one they’d entered through. She pushed at the exit door. Locked.

She offered a quick apology to her sister before throwing her leg into the door. It gave an inch, then snapped closed with a heavy thunk. Sarah groaned against her, pained. She kicked again and the door popped open, sending cold air rushing in.

She ran. She tore across the parking lot, up the small hill, into the woods. She ran until her legs ached, and she kept running after that.

No one was following, she realized. The only sound other than the twigs and leaves under her feet was Sarah’s breathing in her ear, and that was growing fainter by the second.

“Helena…”

Helena pushed harder, darting around trees like she’d built the forest herself.

“Helena… stop.”

“We are almost to the city,” Helena panted. “We will find help.”

“Please,” Sarah begged. Her arms began to slip from Helena’s shoulders. “I can’t.”

Helena caught her as she fell, carefully propping her up against the nearest tree trunk. She pulled out the flashlight and flipped it on. Sarah’s skin was bone-white. Her shirt had completely soaked through.

“Sarah,” Helena said. “You need help. We have to keep going.”

“Helena,” Sarah breathed. She shook her head, and it looked like it took all of her strength. “I’m not gonna make it.”

“No,” Helena snapped. _“No._ You will. I lived.”

She tapped at her own chest, at the scar that had never quite healed right.

“Remember?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. She smiled, and it was so weak. “You always were… the strong one.”

Helena gripped the flashlight tight in her hand. She wanted to scream.

“You are the strongest person I ever met, Sarah,” she said, and it was true, and she should have said it sooner. She should have told her sister every day how strong and brave and beautiful she was. “You will live.”

“Helena…”

Sarah looked into her eyes. She was crying. And now Helena was crying. Sarah reached out a hand. Helena took it. They were both shaking. They were both so scared. Sarah closed her eyes.

A chill cut through Helena’s body. The world flickered around her, and then it was gone.

She sucked in a breath, inhaling a sweet scent, fruit and honey. It was familiar. She blinked, and the world came back into view. She was in the living room of Sarah’s house, walls blanketed by the soft glow of the lamp beside the sofa. It was so warm here.

A memory. Sarah had brought her back here, to this moment.

She saw the familiar moppy mess of light brown hair just in front of her, felt the weight of her on her lap. _Little Kira._ She recognized the scent of her shampoo now.

“”If you run after me,” said the little bunny,” Helena said. She was reading from the book stretched over Kira’s legs. “I will become a fish in a trout stream and I will swim away from you.”

Kira giggled, rocking excitedly.

“Look,” Helena said, encouraged. She ran her finger over the illustration. “The fishes are saying “I have never seen a trout so hairy.””

Kira laughed harder, turning and beaming up at Helena.

“Yeah!”

Her smile was like sunshine.

Helena heard a small chuckle from across the room. She raised her head to see Sarah there, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, staring back at them with love in her eyes.

“Mum!” Kira exclaimed. “You have to stir the hot chocolate so it doesn’t burn!”

Sarah gasped dramatically, throwing her hand over her mouth in mock-surprise.

“I thought you liked it burnt!” she said.

“No!” Kira giggled.

“Alright, alright.”

Sarah flashed Helena a smile before ducking back into the kitchen.

“Keep reading,” Kira said, drawing Helena’s attention back to the page. “I want to start the next book.”

Helena’s gaze shifted to the large stack of books on the coffee table. She remembered how Kira had looked as she hauled them into the living room, struggling to stay upright.

“Angel,” she chuckled. “I want to read all of these to you, but I think your mummy will want you to go to bed soon, yes?”

She watched Kira’s face scrunch into a frown.

“If you keep reading, you don’t have to leave,” she said. “She gets lonely after you leave. She doesn’t say it, but I can tell.”

Helena could only blink back at her, not sure how to respond. Her heart ached.

“Alright,” Sarah called from the kitchen. She walked in carrying a large tray holding their drinks. “Make room.”

Helena and Kira worked in tandem to lower the tower of books from the table to the floor. Helena eyed the bowl of sugar as Sarah slid the tray onto the table.

“Made yours pretty sweet,” Sarah said. “But just in case.”

“Thank you, sestra,” Helena said, and she felt the sting of tears in her eyes. It was about more than just hot chocolate, of course. Sarah had to know it was.

“Yeah,” Sarah said. She smiled, and it seemed like she knew. “Course.”

“Thank you, mum,” Kira added.

“You’re welcome, Monkey,” Sarah cooed, planting a kiss on her daughter’s forehead.

She plopped down beside Helena, immediately slumping against her with a contented sigh. Her fingers carded gently through Kira’s hair. Helena felt a warmth blossoming in her chest.

She turned the page. As she read, her words became more muffled. Her vision clouded over.

She blinked, and she was back to reality. Sarah, who she’d seen just seconds ago, warm and happy and safe, was now just a glimmer of her former self. She was fading.

Sarah’s hand slipped from Helena’s. She slumped back against the tree trunk and then went still.

“Sarah?” Helena whispered, and it sounded unbearably loud.

“Please,” she begged. She took Sarah’s hand again. It had gone limp. Helena fell against her, sobbing. “Please.”

Sarah didn’t say anything.

 

* * *

 

It was easy for Helena to forget that this had been routine once, burying a woman with her face. They were abominations then, meant to be cleansed from the world. Now they felt like the only things worth saving.

Helena lay Sarah down, gentle as she could. She looked peaceful. Like she could open her eyes at any second. But she didn’t, no matter how much Helena hoped she would.

She reached into her pocket and carefully pulled out the folded piece of paper. She held it up to the moonlight. Sarah’s origami angel, tattered at the corners, bent and worn around the edges. She reached down and placed it in Sarah’s palm, closed her fingers tight around it.

“I will come back for you, sestra,” she said. “Always.”

 

* * *

 

When Helena returned to the DYAD facility the next day, it had been abandoned. Her sisters were gone.

 

* * *

 

Helena knew how to stay hidden, how to stick to the shadows. A set of skills that had been beaten into her until they became a part of her. No matter how much she’d changed, there were some things that would always be a part of her.

Finally, after hours in the dark of the small parking garage, a car pulled up. Expensive, of course. A man stepped out from the driver-side door.

_That’s him._

Helena moved like a bolt. She caught up to him in an instant, throwing an arm tight around his neck. She pressed her knife to his throat.

“You scream and it will be the last sound you make,” she whispered. The man shook against her.

She spun him around, throwing him against the wall. She pulled off the hood of her coat. A flash of fear appeared behind the man’s eyes.

“You know my face?” she asked.

His mouth hung open, silent. She pressed the blade into his neck, drawing blood.

“Yes!” he cried. “Look, I, I wasn’t involved in…”

The man paused, swallowed.

“It was horrible. What they did to those women.”

“Yes,” Helena said. “And now you will tell me that you tried to stop them? That you didn’t take DYAD’s money?”

“Please,” he begged. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“You will tell me where my sisters are now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “They were never kept in one place for long. You have to understand, I wasn’t a part of any of that, alright? I never touched them.”

Helena grit her teeth. The knife shook in her hand.

_Easy, Meathead._

“Tell me where I can find Rachel Duncan,” she growled, impatient.

The man swallowed, shook his head.

“I don’t know. She was always careful, only ever made available on her own terms.”

Helena scanned his eyes.

_He’s telling the truth._

“Yes,” she said. “He is.”

The man blinked back at her, confused.

“What?”

Helena clamped her hand over his mouth, just catching the flicker of panic in his eyes before she drove her knife into his neck. With a quick twist and a snap, it was done. His body crumpled to the floor by her feet.

She slipped the knife back into her pocket before disappearing into the shadows.

 

* * *

 

Helena ran a spoon through the pot of bubbling stew. The flame popped and flickered, casting a dim light over the inside of her shelter. This had become her home, if it could be called that, deep in the heart of the woods outside the city. When she wasn’t out hunting, either for food or for more of DYAD’s men, she was here, miles from civilization where no one could find her.

Not that it was always quiet, not when her sister would visit.

 _You know this isn’t what I wanted for you,_ she said. _You shouldn’t be killing anymore._

Helena clicked her tongue, chiding.

“You are too good, sestra,” she said. When the flames were low enough, she could almost see her there in front of her. “There are people who should not be in this world.”

_Does it make you feel any better?_

Helena nibbled at the inside of her lip, focusing on the contents of the pot as she stirred.

_Does it help you forgive yourself for what happened to me?_

_“Nothing_ happened to you,” Helena snapped. “None of this matters. It isn’t real. When I find our sestras, I will go back and I will change it. That is the only real thing, Sarah.”

The only sound was the crackle of the fire and the soft moans of the wind outside.

_It’s okay, you know. To be sad._

Helena hummed to herself as she stirred, tuning her sister out.

 

* * *

 

Soon, spring came, bringing life blooming back to the woods. It would have been beautiful. If any of this were real, Helena would have called it beautiful.

Spring became summer which became fall which became winter again. Winter _again,_ and Helena was no closer to finding her sisters.

Another winter came and went.

Then another.

_Then another._

Helena stopped counting after that.

 

* * *

 

_“Helena!”_

She turned, finding the source of her sister’s voice. The light hit her eyes, blinding her. A shot rang out. Time slowed to a crawl. Sarah fell, feather-light. Her body hit the floor.

The world was red. The world was _thick_ and _red,_ and she was drowning in it.

Helena’s eyes shot open. She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly freezing.

Even here in the dark of her shelter, she could sense her sister there beside her, disappointed.

_Take your feelings out of it. Remember it right._

“I don’t want to, sestra,” Helena shuddered. “I don’t like it.”

_What are you saying? You said you would come back, remember? Do you even want to save me?_

Helena’s nails dug into her shoulders. She closed her eyes and tried again.

 

* * *

 

There were more of DYAD’s people, a trail of them, all with nothing to offer, all with the same look on their faces as Helena slit their throats. She had felt something after the first one. Satisfaction? Relief? Now there was only a dull scraping against the walls of her chest, carved and hollowed out.

At one point, she might have found it funny, how easy it was for them to say sorry once her knife was pressed to her throat. She remembered finding things funny. She remembered things like love and hate, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness. She remembered a lot of things, but they were only just that: memories, parts of her that had fallen away. All that was left now, the last thing still pushing her forward, was the promise she’d made her sister.

“You know my face?”

She pressed the blade harder against the man’s throat when he hesitated. None of them ever knew anything. She could end this pointless game now, let him bleed out over all of his expensive furniture.

“You’re Helena,” the man choked out.

Helena nearly dropped the knife in shock. She loosened her grip on the man’s neck.

“You know me,” she said, allowing a glimmer of hope into her voice. “My sisters. You... do you know where they are?”

The man scanned her face for a moment before speaking.

“You really don’t know?” he asked.

“Know what?”

“They’re… dead,” he said. Helena’s heart fell into her stomach. “DYAD terminated the project years ago. I’m sorry.”

_You see? Will you accept it now?_

Helena snapped. She threw his face against the wall. She found the soft spot behind his left ear and pressed her knife against it. Retribution. Eye for an eye. She cut, slow and deep.

_Let it go, Helena._

He screamed. They always screamed.

“Liar,” she hissed.

“Please! I’m telling the truth!”

She watched his eyes rattle around their sockets, wide and wild with pain, until he finally settled. She pulled her hand away.

“Rachel,” he gasped. “I can help you find her.”

 _Rachel._ She would know where they were. She had to. They had to still be alive.

_Stop lying to yourself._

“Tell me,” Helena growled.

The man nodded eagerly, desperate to pacify her.

“She retired a few years back, but DYAD kept tabs on her. As a precaution.”

“You know where she is?”

“Not exactly,” he admitted, wincing as Helena brought the knife up near his eye. “I, I’m not with DYAD anymore, but I know that she rented out an apartment a while back, in her daughter’s name. It’s not too far from here.”

“Daughter?” Helena laughed at the absurdity of it. “Rachel Duncan has no children.”

“Not biologically, no,” he said. “But she’s a Leda too, cloned from Rachel’s DNA. Charlotte.”

_Charlotte ended up with Rachel? Poor girl._

“I have an e-mail with the address,” he said, motioning to his laptop in the corner of the room.

Helena breathed deep, considering for a moment.

“You know what will happen to you if you try anything,” she said.

The man nodded, swallowing. She released him, watched him scramble across the room, clutching at his ear. She followed close behind, knife inches from his back, ready to strike if given the excuse. He took a seat at the desk, pulling open the laptop.

“It’s here somewhere,” he said. He typed frantically at his keyboard.

Helena sighed, impatient, taking a look around the room. A framed photo on the mantle beside her caught her eye. Two young girls at the beach, grinning into the camera. They couldn’t be older than Kira. At least, the last time Helena had seen her. How long had it been now?

“Here!” the man exclaimed. Helena leaned in closer to the screen. “That’s it there.”

She scanned the message, memorizing the address. The city wasn’t too far from here. If she hurried, she could be there in a couple of hours.

“You are telling the truth, yes?”

“Yes,” the man said. He raised his hands, at her mercy. “I swear.”

“Okay.”

She let him simmer in silence for a moment, watching as he trembled with nervous anticipation. Then she stepped behind him, grabbed his chin and pulled, exposing the white of his throat.

_Helena._

“No, please!” he begged. “I have a family!”

_You don’t have to do this._

“Yes,” she said, calm. She pressed the knife to his neck. “I also had a family once.”

The man shut his eyes tight, weeping.

_Helena_

Her hand stilled. Something stopped her, some instinct from deep inside herself. She pulled the knife away.

“Take care of your children,” she growled. “You don’t deserve them.”

She released him with a shove. The man sobbed gratefully, curling in on himself in his seat.

Helena turned and walked out the front door.

 

* * *

 

Helena stepped into her shelter, moving quickly to her bag in the corner. She picked it up and began circling the room, gathering her belongings. The sooner she relocated, the sooner she could begin scoping out the apartment. As soon as Rachel made her appearance, Helena would be ready for her.

_You know he was telling the truth, don’t you?_

Helena hummed as she worked, distracting herself.

_They’re gone, Helena._

“He’s wrong,” Helena spat. “They are alive. Rachel will know where they are.”

_You honestly believe that?_

Helena said nothing, only clenched her teeth as she continued to pack her things.

_When are you gonna accept what happened to me? What you did to me?_

“Shut up,” she hissed.

_You were supposed to protect me._

And Sarah sounded so scared now, that same quiver in her voice Helena had only ever heard once before.

_You let me die._

“Shut up!” Helena screamed. “You left me, Sarah! You _always_ leave me!”

Everything went quiet. And just like that, Sarah was gone all over again. Helena was alone. Just like that, Helena had always been alone.

She felt a painful twist in her gut. Her sisters were dead. Sarah was dead and never coming back. Helena knew. She had already known.

She clenched her fists tight, nails slicing into her palms. Rachel. _Dirty snake Rachel._ She was still out there. She was still _alive._

Helena buttoned up her pack and stepped out into the forest.

 

* * *

 

Helena lay flat on her stomach in the brush, eye fixed in place over the scope of her rifle. It was a clear shot into the apartment from her vantage point here in the hills overlooking the city. Any doubts she’d had over the man’s claims vanished into nothing once she laid eyes on the place, on the wall of glass that seemed to scream _look at me. Look at all my money. Look at how I continue to live while the rest of your sisters..._

Her hand tightened around the rifle. She watched the empty apartment, willing Rachel to step into her sights. She watched, and _waited._ It was almost surprising how easy it was for her, how naturally she’d fallen back to her training. After everything, she hadn’t really changed much at all. Deep down, she was still the same monster. Made to kill.

One day bled into the next. Breaks were few and far between, only when her eyelids began to drop or her stomach began to twist in on itself. It rained one day, from early morning to late afternoon. Still, Helena stayed, watching, soaked and shivering. Alone. Always alone. Even the voices in her head had abandoned her.

It snowed the next day, slowly at first, eventually coming down in thick sheets as the wind picked up.

It was on that day, just as the sun was beginning to set, that she appeared.

Helena’s breath caught. It had been so long since she’d seen another face like hers, and for a second, for _just a second,_ it was Sarah standing there.

Helena blinked and she was gone.

Through her scope, she watched Rachel. She watched her take off her coat and hang it up in the closet. She watched her walk to the kitchen counter and pour herself a drink.

Helena’s finger hovered over the trigger. One shot. One shot and it would all be over.

One shot and Helena would be the only one left.

She swallowed, willing away the painful tightness in her chest. She took a deep breath to steady her aim.

This woman was the reason her sisters were dead. This woman had taken everything from her.

Still, Helena was hesitating.

Rachel was still, staring blank-faced at the world outside her window. Even through the falling snow, Helena could see it.

She looked lonely. Horribly lonely.

Helena lowered the rifle.

Killing Rachel wouldn’t change anything. Killing Rachel wouldn’t bring her sisters back. Killing Rachel wouldn’t even make her feel better.

This wasn’t Helena’s mission; it never had been. This was an excuse, a reason to keep fighting, to make up for failing her sister. But she couldn’t. She could never make up for that.

The rifle fell to the ground with a heavy thud. She pushed herself to her feet. She took one last look at the apartment building in the distance, then turned and started walking.

She walked until the city disappeared over the crest of the hill behind her. She walked until she reached the forest and farther still, past the shelter she’d built back when she still thought she had a purpose. She walked until her legs ached, and she kept walking after that.

She walked until her body gave out, dropping her to her knees.

The wind gnawed at her face, tearing at the trees around her. The forest sounded like it was screaming.

“Sarah,” she said. She tried to hear her. She wanted so badly to hear her again. “I’m sorry.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, ice cold against her skin.

“I said I would come back for you. _Always.”_

The forest was a dark blur in her vision, fading fast.

“You were right. I was supposed to protect you.”

Her voice died in the air. The snow was so soft underneath her.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. She lowered herself flat against the ground. She didn’t feel cold anymore.

_"I’m sorry.”_

The world howled and screamed around her, and then… quiet.

 _White._ White, all around her, stretching on and on into infinity. And there, in the center of it all, close enough to touch…

“Sarah?”

_Helena._

Sarah smiled and it was the only thing that had ever mattered.

_I’m_

_I’m here. You know I’ve always been here, don’t you?_

Helena opened her mouth to say again that she was sorry, that she couldn’t keep her promise. No sound came out.

Sarah shook her head, smiling kindly. She moved closer and knelt down beside her. She picked her up by her shoulders, cradling her head in her lap.

_Shhh._

Helena felt safe. It had been so long since she’d felt safe.

Sarah began to hum. Something soft and sweet. A lullaby.

Helena closed her eyes, let the melody seep into her. It was haunting, foreign yet familiar. Every note filled her with another vision, a memory of a life unlived. The two of them, just children. Walking home from school. Building sandcastles at the beach. Blowing out their birthday candles. Together. Sisters, just like they were meant to be.

Helena felt the world slow around her. She was weightless, vapor. Little more than a memory. Little more than a dream.

She was with her sister. She was home.


	14. Echoes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The formatting in this chapter is very important, so I strongly recommend not using reader view or anything else that may override it.
> 
>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/jbjdGAg.png)  
> 

_There’s more than biology between us_

_Sarah_

_there’s_

_something_

_else_

 

* * *

 

Sarah Manning had four minutes left to live.

That fact was inescapable, etched into Sarah’s future years ago. All roads, all possibilities had converged here, to this one point, to this one inevitability.

In four minutes, Sarah Manning would cease to exist.

No, that wasn’t quite right. There would still be a Sarah Manning, another version of her. An impostor in her skin.

But for now, in these final minutes, she was here, held prisoner in this ramshackle apartment, a pawn in Rachel Duncan’s sick game.

She slumped against the wall at the head of her bed. She popped open another bottle and brought it to her lips. It didn’t taste like anything at all.

“You’re quite the sight.”

Sarah felt an anger burning deep in her chest at the sound of Rachel’s voice. She choked down another swig before looking up at her and the expression of utter disgust on her face. The feeling was mutual.

“Fuck you,” Sarah spat.

She couldn’t stand the sight of her in Beth’s clothing. She wanted to hurl the bottle straight into her smug face, let it shatter and slice her open. Sarah knew Rachel’s men were posted out of sight just outside, ready to rush in on a moment’s notice, but maybe it would be worth it. What could they possibly do to her now anyway?

But she didn’t. She didn’t even have the energy, and Rachel knew it.

Three minutes.

“Oh, Sarah,” Rachel sighed. “I pulled you out of the gutter, gave you a warm place to sleep, and still you insist on treating me as your enemy?”

Sarah laughed, a hollow sound.

“What, you expect me to thank you or somethin’?” She threw an arm out, gesturing vaguely at their surroundings. “For this?”

“I don’t expect you to believe me,” Rachel said. “But this is merely a means to an end. You’re not the Sarah Manning I know, the Sarah Manning who sentenced you to this. No, you and I share a common enemy, and rest assured, when she returns, she will suffer.”

“Please,” Sarah begged, dropping her head into her hands. “Just let me… just let me have some kinda peace before I go, alright?”

Rachel’s sneer dropped. She considered for a moment, then nodded.

“I suppose you deserve at least that much,” she said. She turned and walked to the kitchen before pausing at the door. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry that it came to this.”

She stepped out of sight.

Two minutes.

Sarah closed her eyes, bringing her knees up and hugging them to her chest. She thought of Kira. If she let her mind go, she could almost picture her there, feel the weight of her in her arms. She smiled through the tears now streaming down her face.

“Mummy loves you so much.”

She’d do anything to be able to open her eyes and see her there in front of her, but there was no such thing as miracles, not for Sarah. Everything she loved and everything she _was_ had been stripped away from her, and she’d been powerless to stop it.

She rocked back and forth on the bed, cradling herself, and waited for the end. There was nothing else she could do anymore.

There was nothing she could do for Kira anymore.

One minute.

Sarah’s eyes shot open.

Maybe there _was_ something.

She’d been selfish. She’d been ready to let everyone rot once she vanished from this world; exactly what Rachel had been counting on. But Kira, she would still be out there, and if there was a chance she’d be able to see her mother safe again…

Sarah sprang to her feet and rushed over to the desk, nervously eyeing the door to the kitchen as she moved. If the other Sarah was going to stand a chance at getting out of this, she’d need a warning. She grabbed the pen and notepad and flipped to a blank page.

_Beth is Rachel._

Frantic, she put pen to paper and began to scratch out a message.

And then, the world snapped to black.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Sarah wakes.

_Where am I?_

Sarah is awake. She has never been more awake. She is alive. Life without form. She is adrift, unshackled from reality.

Time flows in front of her like a river. It pulls her along, into the slipstream of her own story.

“Something went wrong, Sarah.”

A scene surrounds her, envelops her. Images form in her mind. She sees her other self in the apartment. She feels what her other self feels. Fear. Confusion. _Trust._

“Rachel doesn’t scare me.”

Her other self, she doesn’t know the truth.

Sarah cries out.

_Hello?_

_Can you hear me?_

How had it ended up this way? This was supposed to have worked. Beth was supposed to have fixed things. That was the whole point of this. Sarah wanted to throw the tea in her face. She wanted to scream. More than anything, she wanted to see her kid again.

_It’s not Beth_

The thought takes form and then dissipates in front of her. The wall between them is too thick.

She tries again.

_It’s not Beth_

Sarah pored over Beth’s face, tried to make her real in her mind. She still couldn’t believe any of this was real. She couldn’t believe this was Beth sitting in front of her. Then again, maybe it was that disconnect keeping her from going insane.

It’s no use. That reality is just beyond her reach. She is only this, an observer trapped behind a one-way mirror.

But she is also still Sarah, still sharp-edged and angry and stubborn as she always has been. She is tired of being a prisoner. She won’t be dragged along in another Sarah’s timeline.

She pulls against the current and then snaps loose.

She floats, outside of time.

And then, she sees it.

She sees _everything._

Strands of time stretch outward in all directions, forever. An endless web. A tapestry. And in all of them, in every single one of them, she sees her sisters.

She is surrounded by them, every version of them, every possibility. Stories that never were and never will be.

Sarah and her sisters. This is what flows through them. This is what binds them.

She soars. She winds through streams at the speed of thought. Glimpses of other realities appear in flashes all around her. One catches her attention. She latches onto a strand and is pulled into it.

Miriam reached the top of the fire escape and pulled herself up onto the roof. She turned and looked out over the city. The sun was only just beginning to peek out from over the buildings in the east. The concrete underneath her shimmered, bathed in its light.

“Hey. C’mere.”

She turned back to Rhett, already moving to the far end of the building with a knowing smile on his face, motioning for her to follow. Miriam quirked an eyebrow.

“Why?” she asked, suspicious even as she began to walk in his direction.

She shot Rufus a confused look, who wagged his tail in response, taking a few tentative steps toward her. Miriam laughed, bending down to give him a few good scratches under his chin, his favorite spot. She loved that big mutt.

“Check it out.”

Rhett pointed to a spot out in the distance. Miriam walked up to the edge and followed his arm to the wall of concrete just past the train tracks. Bursts of color stretched from end to end, a canvas for the transient kids like her and Rhett, the ones who refused to let this city dim their spirit.

Her eyes landed on the acoustic guitar in the center and the bright blue-green letters flowing out from the strings: _MIMS._

“Shit, Rhett,” she said, eyes blurring over with tears. “That one of yours?”

“What do you think?” he laughed, loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. “Thought it might be good for this place, having something to remember you by.”

She turned to him, confused. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a thick slip of paper.

“Got you something.”

Miriam took it, ran her eyes over it. A bus ticket. To Denver.

She’d been talking about it for almost as long as they’d known each other, taking her beat-up guitar and getting the hell out of this place, taking a shot at something better.

“You’re too big for this town, Mims,” he said. “Knew you’d never do it with me holding you back.”

Miriam hit him square in the arm, hard enough to leave a mark.

“You never held me back from anything, you dumb motherfucker.”

She cast a sad glance down at Rufus, now pitifully pressing his face against her leg.

“What am I supposed to do without you guys?” she sighed.

Rhett laughed in that way he always did when trying to keep from feeling anything else. He threw an arm around her. She resisted for a moment before giving in, because this was starting to feel like goodbye. She’d never been much good at those.

“Whatever the hell you want,” he said.

Miriam sighed, releasing something from deep within herself. She pressed her cheek against Rhett’s shoulder and ran her eyes over the city below, every dirty corner sparkling with soft daylight.

She really hated this town.

But she sure as hell was going to miss it.

 

Sarah breaks free. She flies to another strand.

 

Niki met her in the back corner of the cafe, the farthest from any unfamiliar eyes. She recognized the bright, cherry-red hair instantly. Katja Obinger. Even when forced into hiding, she’d refused to change it.

She took the seat across from Katja, who acknowledged her with a small nod before craning her neck back toward the wall. Niki couldn’t see her eyes behind the thick sunglasses.

“It’s been a long time,” Niki said. “Doesn’t look like you’ve changed much.”

“Don’t be fooled,” she replied. “We were both changed that day.”

“Yeah,” Niki sighed, desperate not to think about it.

“You though,” Katja continued, motioning vaguely to the top of Niki’s head. She’d cropped it short not too long after it happened, let the hair dye fade away to nothing. “You remind me of… your friend.”

“You know her name,” Niki spat. She balled her fists to keep from hurling something across the room.

“Of course I do,” Katja said. She finally pulled her sunglasses off, revealing her eyes, soft and sympathetic. She reached across the table and placed a hand on Niki’s. “I’m sorry. It’s just that we have to be careful about what we say.”

She ended her sentence with a cough, which quickly turned into a violent fit. She brought her napkin to her mouth, though it did little to muffle the horrible wheezing sound. She had mentioned she’d been sick, but it seemed Niki had underestimated the severity of it.

“You okay?” Niki asked, concerned.

“No,” Katja said flatly, once she’d caught her breath. She turned the napkin over, revealing the heavy blotch of red. “It’s been like this for months now. They don’t know what’s wrong with me. It’s why I contacted you. If this happened to me, it could happen to you.”

It was strange. After everything, after losing everyone she’d ever cared about, the sudden possibility of a life-threatening illness didn’t make Niki feel much at all.

“I’m hoping the scientist can help,” Katja continued, when it was clear Niki had no response.

Of course.

Someone had contacted Katja. Another clone, a police detective from Canada who’d formed her own little club of self-aware subjects, God help them. A housewife and a scientist.

“That’s why you’re going,” Niki realized.

“Not just that,” Katja said, sounding offended at the suggestion. “The detective, if she can find who has been hunting us--”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Niki snapped. “They’re cleaning up their mess, just like before. That’s all we are to them. What makes you think it’ll be any different this time?”

“I’m just trying to keep us safe,” Katja said, calming.

“Safe,” Niki laughed.

Katja hadn’t learned a damn thing from Helsinki. They were only kids then, naively believing they could outsmart an enemy with eyes in every corner of the world. That mistake had cost Niki everything, and for what? The other side, what had they lost?

If Niki was the only one willing to do what had to be done, then so be it.

“I’m going with you,” she decided.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Katja replied. “It could be dangerous.”

“Do you think I care?” Niki hissed. She was getting loud, and she didn’t care about that either. Katja slumped down in her seat as other patrons turned to face them. “Do you think I care about anything but making sure those bastards pay for what they did?”

For all that they’d taken from Niki, they should have finished the job. They should have killed her. She’d make them feel the weight of that mistake. They would burn for it. And the ones who were left? They would remember Niki Lintula.

They would remember Veera Suominen.

Sarah flies to another timeline.

Then another.

Then another.

She lives a thousand small moments, fragments of her sisters’ lives.

And then she sees something else, a point where the streams converge, coalesce into something new.

She flies into it.

And then she is still. She floats in place, surrounded on all sides by warm, radiant energy. Endless streams flow in and out from this place, but here, there is calm. Here, she feels safe.

And she feels something else.

Love.

She is filled with it, bursting with it. And suddenly, she knows exactly where she is.

_Kira?_

It was a sleepy Sunday afternoon, and a restless Kira was sat at the kitchen table of Mrs. S’s house, drawing. Two girls holding hands in a circle of fire.

The flames weren’t big enough. Kira bore down with the orange crayon, wax coming off in flecks onto the page.

_Are you there?_

_Monkey?_

Kira’s hand stopped. She raised her head from the table. There was a new voice among the others, calling out to her. Her heart softened, awash with love.

_Mum?_

Kira’s voice surges through her. She flickers with the feeling of it.

_You can hear me_

_Of course I can_

_I can hear all of you_

_All of us?_

And now she sees them. Pulsing motes of energy floating all around her, swimming and dancing to the rhythm of Kira’s heartbeat. They are the same as she is, versions of her sisters, displaced from reality.

It’s then that she finally understands.

_Monkey_

_You tried to tell me what was going on inside you_

_I didn’t know_

_I couldn’t understand it_

_But I see it now_

_They’re always there_

_They tell me things sometimes_

_And show me things_

_What kind of things?_

“Everything alright, love?”

Kira turned to Mrs. S who had raised her head from the cutting board, eyeing her with a look of concern.

“I’m okay,” Kira assured her. “A little hungry.”

“Well,” Mrs. S chuckled. “Won’t be long now.”

She turned back to the counter and continued fixing dinner.

_Mum?_

_What is it?_

_It’s Helena_

_She needs you_

_You have to help her_

_Me?_

_That’s what they’re telling me now_

_What can I do?_

_You can talk to her_

_Like you’re talking to me_

_She just has to be listening_

_But I don’t understand_

_Where will I find her?_

_When will I find her?_

_They say you’ll know_

Somewhere out there, her sister needs her help. A needle in an infinite haystack.

But if there’s one thing Sarah has now, it’s time.

_Before I go_

_I just want to stay here with you for a while_

_Is that alright?_

_Okay_

_Monkey_

_I missed you so much_

Kira’s lips curled into a smile as she brought the crayon back down onto the page.

_I missed you too_

 

* * *

 

She finds Helena. Hundreds and thousands and millions of versions of her.

She weaves in and out of timelines, searching for something, some sign that will lead her to where she needs to be.

Helena is a killer.

Helena is a mother.

Helena lives.

Helena dies.

Amelia leaves Helena with the church.

Amelia leaves Helena with the state.

Amelia leaves Helena and Sarah together.

She sees horrible things, things she thought she’d never have to see. Her twin sister, her own flesh and blood, starved and beaten and molded into the perfect weapon.

“You disappoint me, child.”

She’s a kid. She’s only just a kid.

Sarah calls out to her.

_Helena_

Still, she can’t reach.

_Helena_

She pushes forward and keeps trying.

She finds her one night, withered to skin and bones. She’s so desperate. Sarah can feel every ounce of it.

Helena lowered herself to kneeling, wincing at the sting of her scraped knees coming into contact with the cold stone floor. She shut her eyes and folded her hands. She took in a deep breath, shuddering, then spoke.

“Please...”

She speaks in a language Sarah has never learned, but here, she understands.

“Tomas says you will only speak to him. He says I am not ready to hear you.”

Helena was crying. Her entire body ached from the effort.

“But I feel so alone. Tomas and Maggie, they tell me they love me, but still they give me suffering. They say it is for you. Please. Tell me why. Tell me I am not alone.”

_Helena_

The wall between them seems to thin. The fog parts. Helena is right there. Sarah reaches out.

_You’re not alone_

_I love you_

_Helena_

_Your sisters love you_

Helena’s eyes popped open. She scrambled to the corner of the room and huddled in on herself, shivering.

She’d felt something, a bolt of energy, powerful and unearthly, rushing through her veins and into her mind. She’d felt a warmth, a heat in her chest like nothing she’d ever felt before. She’d felt a longing from deep within herself for something unknown that was just out of reach.

“Your sisters love you,” she repeated.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling, trying to find something there in the darkness.

“Your sisters love you.”

Sarah surges forward through Helena’s timeline. She finds more cracks, openings through which she can just reach her sister. She tells her to be brave. She tells her to be strong. She becomes a part of her.

“We have a connection.”

She shows her memories, glimpses of Helena’s future, the light at the end of the tunnel.

“I dreamed that we were friends.”

She makes a promise. Helena has a family, a real family waiting for her to come home.

“We will be. I have seen it.”

She stays with her, watching over her, a passenger in Helena’s story.

“We’ll never be separate.”

But she can only do so much.

The flow of time continues, unrelenting, unbreaking. She is powerless to stop it.

 

* * *

 

Helena walked until the city disappeared over the crest of the hill behind her. She walked until she reached the forest and farther still, past the shelter she’d built back when she still thought she had a purpose. She walked until her legs ached, and she kept walking after that.

She walked until her body gave out, dropping her to her knees.

The wind gnawed at her face, tearing at the trees around her. The forest sounded like it was screaming.

“Sarah,” she said. She tried to hear her. She wanted so badly to hear her again. “I’m sorry.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks, ice cold against her skin.

Finally, she finds Helena here, cold and alone. Broken.

Sarah calls to her.

_I’m here_

“I said I would come back for you. Always.”

The forest was a dark blur in her vision, fading fast.

“You were right. I was supposed to protect you.”

Her voice died in the air. The snow was so soft underneath her.

_Helena_

“I’m sorry,” she cried. She lowered herself flat against the ground. She didn’t feel cold anymore.

"I’m sorry.”

 

_I’m here_

_You know I’ve always been here_

_Don’t you?_

_Helena?_

_Can you hear me?_

_Can you feel me?_

_If you’re there_

_Please_

_Say something_

The stream narrows. She senses the end ahead of her, approaching fast. The end of Helena’s story.

Sarah can’t hear her. She can barely feel her. Helena is dimming.

_Helena_

_I’m sorry_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t change anything_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t give you a better life_

_I’m sorry I wasn’t a better sister to you_

_Helena_

_I’m sorry I couldn’t stop this_

Sarah wants to cry, but she can’t. She isn’t something that can cry or scream anymore.

She isn’t something that can help her sister anymore.

There is only one thing she can think to do for her now.

Through the veil, she fills her sister with light and warmth and love. She shows her what she’s seen. Other lives, other realities far from this one, where Helena was given a real chance at something better, the chance she deserved.

_Goodbye_

_Helena_

_I love you_

Sarah stays here, one with her sister. The stream pulls her forward. She drifts.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s something there.

She can see it, she can _feel_ it from somewhere ahead, somewhere out there in the ether.

The stream continues to narrow. Helena’s light continues to fade.

But there’s something else.

A branch, a split in Helena’s timeline.

A way out.

_Helena_

_Listen to me_

_You need to get up_

Sarah sees the end up ahead. She’s being pulled toward it.

She fights, pushing against the current.

_Helena_

_This isn’t over_

_Please_

_Please_

_Open your eyes_

The current is getting stronger. It’s fighting back. The end closes in.

_I know you’re tired_

_You’ve been through Hell_

_I know_

_I was there_

_I saw it_

_I saw everything_

_And I know I’ve got no right to ask you this_

_But Helena_

_It can’t end here_

The stream is gaining speed, clutching and pulling at the very core of her. It’s tearing her apart.

But Sarah has never backed down from a fight.

_HELENA_

_PLEASE_

_LISTEN TO MY VOICE_

_YOU CAN STILL DO THIS_

_YOU CAN STILL FIX EVERYTHING_

_YOU CAN STILL KEEP YOUR PROMISE_

_YOU CAN’T GIVE UP_

_NOT NOW_

_YOU CAN’T DIE HERE_

_I WON’T LET YOU_

_YOU HEAR ME?_

_I WON’T LET YOU_

Sarah is being unmade, torn into ribbons of screaming light.

 

_HELENA_

 

 

_WAKE_

 

 

_UP_

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

Helena opened her eyes.

 


	15. Faith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/lf1ri3r.png)  
> 

“Sarah?”

Helena blinked into the wind, searching through the white surrounding her. She was alone, of course, and yet…

 _Sarah._ She had felt her. She was sure of it. She had flowed right through her.

Helena pushed herself to standing with a strength she didn’t have. Her entire body had long gone numb. She’d been hollowed out, filled with something new, and it was that which was now pulling her forward.

She walked, pushing against the wind, trudging through the snow, now ankle-deep. She pushed and pushed and _kept pushing,_ past her shelter and back out into the city, her legs threatening to give out underneath her at any moment.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

She pushed past a young couple, taking a moment from digging their cars out of the snow to shoot her a concerned glance.

Finally, she reached the apartment building, towering through the falling snow into the grey sky above her, past the point of visibility.

Security at the front entrance was tight. Not enough to stop Helena but enough that she would draw unwanted attention. She couldn’t take the risk of being interrupted. She would need time with Rachel.

She slipped around the side of the building, searching for a clean way inside.

She checked the first couple of windows before spotting the side entrance farther down. She walked up to it and pulled at the handle. Locked, of course.

But for once, it seemed fate was on her side.

At that moment, the door burst open, a young brunette woman practically spilling out onto the sidewalk, her face buried in her hands. She brushed past Helena, just clipping her arm.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, voice shaky, before disappearing around the corner.

Helena caught the door and slipped inside.

She made it to the seventh floor with little incident, outside of catching the attention of a startled woman in expensive clothes, ducking into her apartment at the sight of her. Helena could only hope she wouldn’t call the police.

Finally, she’d reached her destination. Apartment 703.

She reached out and twisted the handle. By some miracle or twist of fate, she found it unlocked.

The door swung open.

Whatever she’d expected to find on the other side, it hadn’t been this: Rachel on her knees in the center of the room, eyes closed, with a pistol pressed to her forehead. And the one holding the gun…

“Helena?!”

Alison Hendrix. Nine years Helena had spent searching for her sisters, and suddenly here was Alison, alive in front of her eyes.

Helena opened her mouth to speak, but stopped when she heard it.

A laugh.

Rachel. It was soft at first, barely more than a whisper. Then it built. Soon, the room was filled with the sound of it, peals of cracking laughter spilling out of her, wild and uncontrollable.

“Of course,” she breathed. “Of course I would be denied even this one kindness.”

“Helena,” Alison said, gun shaking in her hand. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“The same as you, I would imagine,” Rachel said. “I’m afraid she’ll have to wait her turn.”

Helena eyed the gun in Alison’s hand, still aimed squarely at Rachel’s head, then raised her eyes to meet Alison’s.

“You came to kill her,” Helena realized.

“No!” Alison objected. “I don’t know. I just wanted to find our sisters, but…”

“They are gone,” Helena said.

Alison nodded, now shaking with tears.

“That’s right,” Rachel laughed, her voice an octave off from normal. “Every one of your sisters, hundreds of them, dead. Tossed aside without so much as a funeral.”

Helena watched Alison’s hand tighten around the gun.

“Everyone you ever loved is gone,” Rachel continued. “You’re both simply too late.”

“You’re wrong,” Helena said calmly. “We can still change it.”

“What, what do you mean?” Alison stammered. “How can you know that?”

“I have faith,” Helena replied.

It was the truth. It was a feeling she’d lost a long time ago, but now she was brimming with it, reborn with it.

Rachel laughed again, derisive.

“You’re a fool.”

“Faith,” Alison repeated, considering the sound of it.

“A worthless notion,” Rachel hissed. “What has your faith brought you? There are no gods here. There is no justice but for what we make.”

Rachel grabbed Alison’s wrist, forcefully pressing the barrel of the gun to her own forehead.

“End this, Alison,” she said.

“Stop,” Alison whimpered.

“I did this to you,” Rachel hissed. “You had a life. You had a family. And now look at you, old and alone.”

“Shut up,” Alison spat.

“Do not listen, Alison,” Helena warned.

“Where are your children now, I wonder?” Rachel continued, undeterred. “Do they even still think about you? Do they still think about their father?”

“Shut up!” Alison screamed.

She brought the pistol crashing down onto Rachel’s head with a thud, sending her collapsing to the floor in a heap. She clapped her free hand over her mouth, horrified, before dropping the gun on the kitchen counter behind her in disgust.

“Is… is she…”

“No,” Helena said, noting the rise and fall of Rachel’s chest.

“Thank god,” Alison sighed, though it wasn’t clear how much she meant it.

The room fell silent, neither of the two of them able to quite wrap their minds around the reality of their sudden and unexpected reunion.

Finally, something seemed to snap in Alison. She sprang forward with a loud wail, swallowing Helena up into her arms.

Helena leaned into her, letting herself melt into the embrace. She could truly feel it then, how long they’d both been alone.

“It’s good to see you, sestra Alison.”

“I never thought that I’d…” Alison’s arms tightened around Helena, clutching at her shoulders. It would be painful if it weren’t such a comfort. “We’re the only ones left, Helena.”

“Yes.”

Alison wept into her shoulder, her entire body trembling against Helena. Then, she pulled back, bringing a hand up and running her fingers along Helena’s face, tracing the shape of it with her eyes.

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?” she said.

Helena looked into her sister’s eyes and saw the depth of her desperation, saw every second of every year she’d spent alone. She saw the faint glimmer of hope she’d carried inside her, burned away and dimmed over time. Helena could only imagine what Alison was seeing in her now.

“Alison,” she said, pulling the both of them back to reality. “This world doesn’t matter. Our sestras are waiting for us.”

Alison blinked back at her, confused. Helena watched a small hint of hope rise to the surface before being suppressed.

“Helena, I don’t… I just can’t keep holding onto the idea that there’s a way back. It hurts. The hope just hurts too much.”

It was a feeling Helena was all too familiar with, one she’d carried the weight of for what felt like an eternity. But something was different now. Helena wasn’t that person anymore.

She reached out for Alison’s hand, a flash of the clandestine meeting under that bridge all those years ago shooting to the forefront of her mind. But unlike then, there was no hesitation from Alison. Without so much as a second thought, she took Helena’s hand in hers, gripping firmly.

Helena had spent nine years in solitude, training herself for this moment. She closed her eyes and remembered.

In an instant, reality snapped and cracked open. She was back, returned to her living nightmare. The pale shine of the flashlight piercing through the darkness. The sound of footsteps, her _sister’s_ footsteps, following just behind her. If she could only just turn around, if she could see her face just once before she…

_“Helena!”_

She felt her body turning. The back of Sarah’s head entered her field of vision. There was a blinding flash of light, and then--

Everything shifted. Alison stepped back from Helena, wide-eyed and shaking. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

“I want to try,” Helena said, casting a glance at Rachel’s unconscious form on the floor. “With three.”

Alison followed Helena’s eyes. Her mouth dropped open as she realized what she was suggesting.

“It won’t work,” she said, voice thin. “It has to be four. MK said--”

“How did she know this? How many times did she try?”

Alison’s eyes flitted nervously around the room.

“Twice,” Alison said.

“Only twice. You felt it, yes? The memory is strong. It could work.”

Alison didn’t respond, but Helena could see it in her eyes. Whatever this was inside of them had latched onto this memory, stronger than any of the others.

She watched Alison stumble to the couch and collapse onto it. She looked deathly pale.

“What is wrong?” Helena asked.

The words were barely out of her mouth before Alison burst into tears. Her body curled in on itself, quaking with violent sobs.

Helena approached, cautious. She took a seat next to her.

“I don’t know,” Alison choked out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve spent so long looking for a way back. It was the only thing that mattered to me. But now that you’re here, now that it might be real, I just…”

Alison tapered off, breaking down into sobs again. She fell against Helena, a shaking mess. Helena took her into her arms. She ran a hand across her back.

“You have been through a lot too, I think.”

“I’m scared, Helena,” Alison whimpered. “What if we can’t change anything? I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you again.”

Helena’s heart ached. Time had taken its toll on the both of them. She reached over and took Alison’s hand, gripping tightly.

“This is why we survived.”

Alison stared at Helena’s hand in hers, seemed to consider the feel of it.

“I know,” she sighed. “God, I miss them all so much.”

She nodded, more to herself than anyone else, then looked up into Helena’s face, newfound determination in her eyes.

“We…” she started. “We would need a plan.”

There it was, a glint of the old Alison. Helena smiled. It was a small thing, but for the first time in an eternity, Helena felt like she could smile.

And so, they began to form a plan, Helena watching over Rachel as Alison paced the room in thought.

The memory itself was far from ideal. They’d be jumping back to that point in time, to that night when they had been hunted in the dark, when at least two of their sisters had lost their lives. It was also beginning to feel more and more like their only option. Alison was eager to try other memories, but none triggered anything near the response that this one had.

So they’d be jumping straight into the very worst kind of danger, and if that weren’t enough, there was also one other thing.

“Rachel,” Helena pointed out. “She will know what we are trying to do.”

There was no way around it. Rachel had been there that night, and by jumping with her, they’d be giving her every opportunity to stop them from changing the past.

Alison looked down at her body on the floor, face tightening.

“God help her if she tries to stop us.”

They both felt the weight of the situation, how long they’d waited for this opportunity and what it would mean if they failed.

They had one shot. To save Sarah. To save Beth. To end this nightmare, once and for all.

After going over the details, Helena and Alison gathered above Rachel’s unconscious body, now awkwardly propped up against the kitchen counter.

Helena took Rachel’s hand in hers, then Alison’s. Alison breathed a deep sigh before following suit.

“Will you pray for us, sestra?” Helena asked.

“Oh,” Alison said, caught off-guard. “I don’t know if I… I haven’t felt particularly close to God lately.”

She pulled her lip between her teeth, considering for a moment.

“Alright,” she decided.

They exchanged a nod, then bowed their heads.

“Dear Lord,” she began, tears quickly filling her voice. “Please, _please_ hear me. We need a miracle now. I have to believe that we deserve better than this, that our sisters didn’t deserve what happened to them. I know that there is a future out there for us, one where we all can be safe. One where we can see our families again. Please, if you can hear me, please help guide us to that future. Please help us make this right again.”

Helena felt Alison’s hand tighten around hers. She opened her eyes to find her staring back, something desperate in her expression.

Helena smiled, a small assurance.

“Amen,” she said.

“Amen,” Alison repeated.

With that, there was only one thing left to do. There was still so much doubt in Alison’s eyes, but Helena couldn’t waver now. This would work. It _had_ to. There was simply no other option.

She closed her eyes. She cast her mind back to that night. The light. The footsteps. The feel and the smell of blood soaking into her clothes.

The memory latched on to something inside of her, _pulling._ She felt herself begin to fall.

Then, it broke. She was snapped back to the present, back to their grim reality.

Helena looked to Alison, utter disappointment written all over her face.

“It’s fine,” Alison said, in spite of her expression. “It’s okay. Just, just try again.”

Helena nodded. She took a deep breath, then shut her eyes, focusing her mind.

This had to work. They were their sisters’ last hope.

She let the memory envelop her.

_Light. Footsteps. Blood._

It wasn’t enough. It just wasn’t enough.

They were their sisters’ last hope.

She was Sarah’s last hope.

_Sarah._

Of course. Helena had let the memory become something else, just a checklist of things to store away in her mind, because that had made it easier. But it was more than that. For this to work, it had to be more than that.

So she remembered.

She remembered the feeling of it, of seeing her twin sister gunned down in front of her eyes. She pulled it into herself, the greatest pain she’d ever known, let it fester inside of her.

The memory latched.

Her grip tightened, nails digging into flesh.

She heard herself scream. She felt her voice leave her body. She listened as it faded into the distance.

She fell.

One.

Two.

_Three._


	16. Burn the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
> [THE STORY SO FAR...](https://i.imgur.com/OsSpkhm.png)  
> 

“Sestra?”

“Helena!” she said a little too loudly, but she’d never been more relieved to hear her sister’s voice than in this moment. “Come on, let me outta here.”

Helena rushed over and began working at the restraints. Sarah brought her hand to her throat as it snapped free, rubbing at the spots that still stung.

“Rachel’s gone mad,” she said. “She tried to kill me. I think she ordered the guards to kill you.”

She watched Helena’s eyes shift back and forth in thought.

“We will be careful,” she said.

Sarah nodded. Helena handed her the flashlight before kneeling down to free her legs. Sarah angled the light down to her feet, breath catching as she saw the splash of red coating Helena’s arm and chest.

“Shit,” she said. “What happened to you? You alright?”

“Yes,” Helena said, shooting her a questioning look before following her gaze. “It is not mine.”

“Oh,” Sarah muttered, swallowing. “Right.”

With one final snap, she was free. She slipped out of the chair and moved with her sister to the door. They peered into the hallway for any signs of life. Nothing but black.

“I don’t know where they took Cosima,” Helena whispered. “The door outside is close. What do you want to do, Sarah?”

Sarah thought back to the look in Rachel’s eyes as she pressed down on her throat, full of hate and nothing else.

 _Shoot to kill,_ she had said.

This could be their only opportunity to escape, and she wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this place as possible, but she’d never be able to live with herself knowing she left her sisters behind. She swallowed back her fear.

“We have to find them,” she said. “We all get out together.”

“Okay,” Helena said. “Stay close to me.”

Sarah nodded, following close behind as they stepped out into the hallway. Helena kept the flashlight angled down near her feet as they moved, careful to avoid detection. They soon reached a corner, hallways stretching off in two directions ahead of them.

“They took her this way,” Sarah remembered, pointing down the hall to their left. Helena nodded and they pressed forward.

Sarah blinked--

The universe shifts.

\--opened her eyes.

Helena stopped dead. Time seemed to grind to a halt. Sarah’s breath caught in her throat.

“Helena?” she whispered.

Helena whipped around, a look on her face Sarah had never seen before.

Then, she moved. She tore past Sarah, forming a blur in her periphery. Sarah turned just as she heard the door click open behind her, light spilling out into the hallway.

Helena threw herself forward shoulder-first, hitting the door with a crack. The low groan of a man’s voice echoed out from the other side. Like a bolt, Helena slipped inside, her knife raised and ready to strike. Sarah stood helpless, too stunned and terrified to move, as a sickening squelching sound filled the air. Then, quiet.

“H-Helena?” she cried, voice small.

Helena’s head popped out into the hall. She was safe. She reached her hand out to Sarah. Her arm was dripping blood.

“Sarah,” she said. “Come. It’s safe.”

With only a moment’s hesitation, Sarah followed her sister into the room. Shuddering, she moved past the guard’s body bleeding out onto the floor and joined her sister in the corner.

“Helena, how did you--”

“I came back for you,” Helena said, pained. She reached out and took Sarah’s hand. She gripped it tight. “I came back for you.”

“You…” Sarah started, voice catching. Helena had jumped, back to this moment. It could only mean something had happened. Something bad. Had Sarah been taken? Or worse?

“There is no time, sestra,” Helena said, and Sarah could see and hear how much she was holding back. “I wish… I wish there was much more time, but there are things I must tell you.”

Sarah swallowed hard.

“Alright.”

What Helena told her stirred up a thousand questions in Sarah, but she kept quiet as she listened, sensing the urgency of the situation. Unbelievably, it was Beth and MK who had caused the blackout in an attempt to rescue their sisters, but their mission, along with Sarah and Helena’s escape attempt, had failed.

_“We failed.”_

Helena didn’t elaborate on that point, and Sarah didn’t dare to ask.

Even more unbelievable than Beth and MK’s involvement though, was how Helena had jumped back: with the help of Alison… and Rachel.

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “Rachel helped you?”

Helena shook her head.

“It was not her choice. It was the only way.”

“So, she knows,” Sarah muttered. “She’s gonna try and stop us.”

“Yes, this is what I think. We must watch for her.”

“Right.”

“We will get Cosima out and then we will find the others.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. There’d be time for an internal crisis once they were out of this place. Roll with the punches, right? “Yeah, alright.”

Sarah paused, waiting for Helena to say more, but was met only with silence. She’d frozen in place, staring back at Sarah with that same expression she’d seen in the hall earlier.

“Hey,” Sarah said. She took Helena’s hand, and for a moment, nothing else mattered. “You alright?”

Helena’s head fell, eyes finding the point where their hands met. She opened her mouth to speak, but something else broke the silence.

“This is--”

Both sisters turned to the sound of the voice, muffled by static.

“The radio,” Helena said. She pulled away from Sarah, leaving her hand hanging in air.

Helena crouched over the guard’s body and found the source of the noise. She picked up the radio and brought it over as the voice on the other end continued to speak.

“Rachel,” Sarah realized.

“--down. I repeat, stand down. Do not engage.”

Helena and Sarah exchanged a look. The voice was unmistakable, but the words themselves… Rachel calling off the guards? It didn’t make sense.

“Why?” Sarah asked, hoping Helena could provide some insight. “Why would she do that?”

Helena shook her head. She looked just as confused as Sarah.

“I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

“Beth!”

Alison hammered at the thick iron door of her cell with her fist. If she had any hope at all of changing the past, she needed Beth to hear her.

“Ali?”

Krystal’s voice echoed from the vent in the wall, small and frightened.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s alright, Krystal,” Alison assured her. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise.”

From the ensuing silence, it seemed Krystal accepted that.

Finally, after minutes of screaming Beth’s name, Alison heard the lock slide open. A beam of light hit her eyes.

“Alison?”

She reached forward and grabbed Beth’s arm, forcefully pulling her into the room.

“What are you doing?” Beth asked, but there wasn’t any time to explain. Alison quickly found MK and took her hand. It shook in her grip.

“You have to trust me, okay?” she said to both of them. “Get in and stay quiet.”

“Hello?” she heard Krystal whisper. “Who’s there?”

“They’re friends, Krystal,” Alison said. “They’re here to get us out.”

“Really?” Krystal cried.

MK hesitated for only a moment, then nodded. She stepped into the cell, huddling close to Beth as she watched Alison slide the door closed.

“You jumped, didn’t you?” MK whispered. “Timeline E… Or F, maybe…”

“Yes,” Alison replied. She pressed her ear to the door, listening for footfall.

“God, Alison,” Beth muttered. She ran her eyes over the pitifully small room in the harsh glare of the flashlight, then at Alison, her head shaved clean. “What did they do to you?”

“I’m fine,” Alison assured her. Nothing could be further from her mind at this point than her time spent in this place. Not after everything else.

But those were only memories now, fragments of a reality unwritten. What was here in front of her, Beth and MK, her sisters, _alive,_ this was what was real, the only thing that mattered now. She wanted nothing more than to pull them into her arms and to tell them every little useless thing she’d only thought to say after they were gone, but first, she needed to be sure they were safe. She needed to get them out.

“Alison?” Beth whispered. “What’s going on?”

The hall outside had been quiet for some time now. The guard should have come this way by now, she was sure of it.

But there was only silence.

“Wait here,” Alison whispered to the others as she slowly pulled the door open.

“Are you kidding me?” Beth asked. She lay a hand on Alison’s shoulder, then pushed past her. “Stay behind me.”

After a quick check outside with the flashlight, Beth stepped into the hall, gun at the ready. Alison drew in a deep breath, then followed into the dark.

 

* * *

 

Sarah pulled the door open with a loud clatter. The beam of the flashlight swept over the room, landing on a woman huddled in the corner, head shaved. Not Cosima.

“Hey,” Sarah called. “It’s alright.”

“Oh my god,” the woman whimpered. She stood up, quivering. “Please, you have to get me out.”

“We will,” Helena said, extending her free hand. “Come with us.”

“Sarah?”

Sarah turned to the source of the voice, instinctively raising her gun.

“Delphine?!” Sarah called in disbelief. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, quickly catching up to them. “Rachel’s men, they found me and brought me here. I thought they were going to… I don’t know, but they let me go. They just... walked away, left me there in the middle of the hallway.”

Sarah shook her head in confusion. None of this made any sense. Rachel had called the guards off? She’d let Delphine go? This wasn’t Rachel, at least not the one Sarah knew. What had happened in that other timeline?

“Sarah.”

Sarah turned to Helena, who had already opened the next door over. She watched someone emerge from inside and throw their arms around Helena.

“Cosima!” Sarah called out as she rushed over to the two of them.

“Sarah,” Cosima cried, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Thank god.”

“It’s Helena you should be thankin’,” she replied, shooting her sister a grateful look.

It was then that Cosima finally spotted Delphine.

“Holy shit,” she muttered. She sprang over to Delphine, pulled her close. “You’re okay. You’re okay, right?”

“I’m okay,” Delphine said, tears in her voice. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Cosima said. She pulled back and looked into Delphine’s eyes, laughing with relief. “I’m fine.”

“Listen, Cos,” Sarah said, pulling her out of her reverie. “We’re not out yet.”

“Right,” Cosima said, nodding. “Eyes on the prize. We still need to find Alison.”

“She is not here,” Helena pointed out, motioning vaguely down the hallway. “They took her to another part of the building.”

“Wait, the others,” Cosima said. She began moving to the next door over. “We can’t just leave them here.”

“Go, Cosima,” Delphine said. “I will get them out.”

“Delphine,” Cosima said, helpless.

“We both know you don’t belong here.” Delphine said. She put on a brave smile. ”Now go and change the world.”

Cosima shook her head. A tear fell to the floor. She pulled Delphine close and kissed her softly, then pulled away, her hand grazing her cheek.

“You always were the responsible one.”

“Be safe, chéri,” Delphine said kindly as she pulled away, hand lingering on Cosima’s for just a moment.

“Thank you, Delphine,” Sarah said.

Then they moved.

 

* * *

 

Beth stopped in her tracks. She threw her arm out to stop the others behind her as she listened. Footsteps approached from the hall to their right. She signalled to the others to wait, then carefully peered around the corner.

“Sarah?”

 

* * *

 

“Beth,” Sarah muttered, quickening her pace to catch up with her. “You really are here.”

She cast a glance around at the others, spotting two in the back dressed like prisoners. One stepped forward on shaking legs.

“Sarah? Are you alright?”

“Alison,” Sarah realized. “Yeah, I’m fine. Christ, I should be the one askin’ you.”

“I will be,” she replied. She exchanged a knowing look with Helena. “Once we’re free of this.”

“We are all here, yes?” Helena asked, running her eyes along the group. “We should jump.”

“Whoa, hang on,” Beth said. “I know this isn’t the best time, but can we take a second? Some of us don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

“Uh, yeah,” said the woman beside Alison. “I’m kinda confused too?”

“Dunno if we have a second, Beth,” Sarah pointed out.

Beth cocked her head over her shoulder, glancing down the empty hallway behind her.

“Call me crazy, but I don’t think anyone’s looking for us.”

“You’re bloody crazy then,” Sarah snapped. She could still feel Rachel’s hand wrapped around her throat. “I saw it in her face. She’d die before she let us win.”

“It’s not unthinkable, Sarah,” Alison said. “You didn’t see what she was like in the future. She was just… she wasn’t the same person anymore.”

“Jesus,” Sarah muttered, disbelieving. “What happened to you two? How long were you gone for?”

Alison averted her eyes at the question, swallowing nervously. She opened her mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Sarah turned to Helena, her eyes also fixed elsewhere.

“Helena… how long?”

“Not long,” Helena said, and that was the end of it. She’d already begun explaining the situation to the rest of the group.

“God,” Beth groaned as Helena wrapped up. She pressed a hand to her temple. “I’m so ready to be done with this shit.”

Sarah didn’t have to see the looks on everyone’s faces to know the feeling was mutual.

“Okay, but listen,” Beth continued. “You say you want to go back to when we recorded the video message. You really think that’s the right move?”

The group fell silent.

“I don’t know,” Helena finally admitted.

“There’s just so much that’s impossible to predict,” Cosima added. “It was the best we could come up with. A point in time when we had some kind of control, you know?

“You got somethin’ better?” Sarah asked Beth.

“Maybe,” Beth replied. She turned back to Mika expectantly, whose hands were winding around themselves with worry.

“We can’t,” Mika said. “It’s too risky. Too many variables.”

“Mika,” Sarah cut in, hopeful. “What is it?”

Beth placed a hand on Mika’s shoulder, reassuring.

“It’s okay.”

Mika drew a deep breath, then nodded.

“I met Rachel Duncan once,” she said.

Sarah’s bit her tongue, resisting the urge to interrupt.

“We were just children. I think that… if I can go back to that moment, I might be able to change things. Change Rachel, before she becomes… this.”

Millions of questions swirled in Sarah’s head. She took a look around her, at the line of dumbfounded faces on her sisters.

“I, I know how it sounds,” Mika stammered. “All I can tell you is that there was something inside me that told me it was what I had to do. I’ve never felt anything like it.”

 _Something inside her?_ The words seemed strange, especially coming from MK. Even with all the pain and anger inside her, Sarah hadn’t known her as someone to act on instinct alone. But was that all this was? Instinct? A gut feeling? Sarah couldn’t help but feel as though she’d experienced something like it before. Something _more._

“I have,” Helena said. “I have felt this. In another time, I… I lost everything. I lost hope. I was alone. I was dying.”

“Helena,” Sarah said, because it was all she could think to say. She reached out and took her sister’s trembling hand.

“But then I felt this, like you say,” Helena continued. “Something inside of me. It lifted me up and showed me the way. It led me back here.”

She took a breath, steadying her voice.

“I believe in what MK says,” she said.

“So do I,” Beth added. “I’ve felt it too.”

“Yeah,” Sarah said. Her eyes met Helena’s. “I think I have too.”

Alison cleared her throat as she collected herself.

“I know it was more than just a miracle that brought us back together, Helena,” she said. “I’ll trust you, always.”

She turned to MK, putting on a soft smile.

“I trust you too, MK.”

“Cos?” Sarah said. It seemed she was the only one of them still hesitant. “Y’alright with this? Not exactly scientific, is it?”

Cosima let out a small chuckle, shaking her head.

“You know,” she started. “After seeing all the horrible shit people were willing to do in the name of science… I dunno, I think I’m ready to put my faith in something else.”

She picked her head up, offered Sarah a firm nod.

“You guys have never let me down. So, let’s do it. Let’s get the hell outta here, okay?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said with a smile.

Sarah looked around at her sisters, a circle of determined faces. All except Beth. She had turned away, head down in thought.

“Beth?” Sarah said. “You’re with us, yeah?”

“Sorry,” she replied. “You guys are gonna have to go on without me.”

“What?” Mika cried.

“Mika,” Beth sighed, voice shaking. “I can’t leave. DYAD still has women locked up. All over the world. Someone has to stay and fight for them.”

“Not you,” Mika protested. Tears flooded from her eyes. “Please. We’re supposed to be--”

“A team, I know.”

Beth stepped close to her and placed her hands on Mika’s shoulders, gripping tightly.

“I know, Mika, and I’m sorry,” she said. “But I know I have to do this. We’re both protecting our sisters the best we know how.”

“I can’t,” Mika sobbed. “Not without you.”

“Bullshit,” Beth said, chuckling through the tears. “You already have.”

“You’re sure about this?” Sarah asked, though from the look on Beth’s face, she already knew the answer.

“I’m sure.”

“What…”

Everyone turned to the source of the voice, Alison, now staring back at the rest of them in wide-eyed confusion.

“Beth?” she said, panicked. “Sarah?”

“What is this?” Helena asked.

Sarah turned to her side only to find a similar look on Helena’s face.

“What happened?” Helena asked.

“Shit,” Sarah muttered. Her breath caught in her throat. A reaction like this could only mean one thing.

“What?!” Cosima cried out. “No, it’s… it’s too soon! We should still have time!”

Cosima was right. From what Mika had told them and what they’d all experienced themselves, they were supposed to have at least an hour in the past before being forced out of their bodies. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes since Helena had come back, and yet...

“I… jumped back to this time?” Helena realized.

“We, we couldn’t have known,” Mika said, shaking her head furiously. “Beth and I were working from a very limited data set. I hadn’t considered a jump could be performed with only three people.”

Only three people. Was that the reason?

“Sarah,” Beth said. “If _they’re_ back, then--”

“Rachel,” Sarah muttered gravely. “I know.”

The Rachel from the future, whatever had motivated her change of heart, it hardly mattered now. She was gone, and left in her place… well, Sarah didn’t need a reminder of what this Rachel was capable of.

“You guys have to go,” Beth said. “Now.”

“Wait,” Mika begged. “Please.”

“Mika,” Beth said as she pulled her into a tight hug. A goodbye. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks, Beth,” Sarah said, for whatever good it did. “For everythin’.”

“Thank you,” Mika whimpered into Beth’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Beth called out to the woman Sarah didn’t recognize. “You’re with me. I’ll get you out of here.”

The woman looked around at the others for a moment, then nodded. She joined Beth at her side.

Beth pulled away from Mika, then reached down and took her hand.

“Find me, okay?” she said with a smile. “In the next timeline.”

With a wink, her hand slipped from Mika’s, and then she was gone.

“Come on,” Sarah said. She found the nearest door and opened it. A small office, unoccupied. “In here.”

“Wait just a second,” Alison spat. “Could someone please explain to me just what in the heck is going on here?”

Sarah groaned. Not this again. She shook her head, trying to shake loose a half-satisfying explanation, but stopped short when she spotted Mika, still standing in shock in the middle of the hallway, staring out into the darkness.

“Sorry, Cos,” Sarah said, gesturing toward Alison. “Could you, uh…”

“Okay, yeah,” Cosima interjected. She began ushering the others through the door as she spoke. “So, uh, real quick recap…”

“Mika,” Sarah called. No response. Sarah stepped forward and lay a hand on her shoulder. Mika shuddered, waking from her thoughts. “Hey. You alright?”

Mika looked over her shoulder at Sarah for just a second before turning back. She swallowed.

“I’m scared,” she said.

“I know,” Sarah said, calm. “But we’re so close. We’re almost home, ey?”

Mika considered the words for a moment, then turned to face her.

“Home?”

“Yeah,” Sarah said, laughing brightly. “Where we’re all safe. You and me. Beth. All of us.”

She took Mika’s hand, gripped it tight.

“I’ll be there,” she said. “Whatever comes, I’ll be there. Always.”

Sarah had left Mika behind once before. She’d never make that mistake again. Ever.

Mika’s eyes flitted back and forth across the floor for a second.

“Okay, Sarah.”

“Okay,” Sarah said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Come on.”

Mika nodded and wrapped her hand tighter around Sarah’s before following her into the small, sterile office where her sisters were waiting. They all stood huddled in the far corner, bathed in the glow of the flashlight.

“We good?” Sarah asked Cosima as she made her way over to them.

“Uh,” Cosima stammered. “I gave them the Cliffs Notes, but I dunno. It’s a lot, Sarah.”

“I know,” Sarah said, sympathetic. “Wish we had more time, but it’s now or never.”

Helena took a step forward and grasped Sarah’s hand.

“So we jump,” she said, then reached out to Alison with the other hand.

Alison didn’t even hesitate a second before taking it.

“We jump,” she said, determined.

“Alright,” Sarah said. “Come on, we don’t have much--”

A gunshot pierced the air. The floor by Sarah’s feet shattered into dust. The room was filled with the screams of her sisters as they separated. Some fell to their knees, shielding themselves with their arms. Others froze in place.

Sarah turned to the open doorway and to Rachel, arm outstretched, her face a twisted mask.

“What have you done, Sarah?!” she screamed.

Helena stepped in front of Sarah, into the line of fire. The gun shook in Rachel’s grip.

“Stop,” Sarah whispered, catching Helena’s arm as it moved to the knife in her pocket. No way in hell was she letting her sister die trying to save them. “It’s alright.”

With a reassuring nod, she moved around Helena, hands in the air as she stepped closer to Rachel.

“I didn’t do anythin’,” Sarah said, calm. “It was you, Rachel.”

Rachel scowled.

“Do not lie to me, you wretch!”

Rachel turned her gun to Sarah’s side, to the group behind her.

She fired.

A scream filled the room, thin and pained. Sarah grit her teeth, then turned back to see Mika on the floor, clutching at her arm just below the shoulder. Blood seeped through her fingers and onto the tile. Cosima quickly scrambled across the floor to her.

“Jesus Christ,” Sarah muttered. Bile began to rise in her throat. She forced it down, then turned back to Rachel.

“I’m not lyin’, alright?” she said. “I’m too tired. We’re all tired, Rachel. Aren’t you?”

Rachel’s nostrils flared. Her entire body shook, gun rattling in her grip. Sarah chanced a step forward.

“You know this isn’t the way,” she said. “It’ll never end. This thing, whatever’s inside us, we’re not made for it. We’re not gods, Rachel. We’re just bloody people, alright? We fought and we bled and we... _died.”_

Sarah drew in a shaky breath. Tears streamed from her eyes.

“And we _came back._ It can’t go on like this. No more, Rachel. No more.”

Rachel’s face tightened. She stared back at Sarah, wild-eyed, unblinking as tears fell from her eyes.

“Let’s burn it all down, ey?” Sarah continued. “We can start over, all of us. We can give you another life, Rachel.”

A shot rang out.

Sarah ducked, throwing her hands over her head. Then her eyes snapped to her left and the dust falling from the splintered concrete.

Rachel fired into the wall again. And again. Her voice rose above the gunshots, a scream from deep within herself, something primal and terrible.

Another shot. Then another. Then a click. Another click.

The gun clattered to the ground, empty. For one fleeting, horrible moment, Sarah could see underneath the mask, to the hollow center of Rachel Duncan.

And then it was gone. Rachel turned and walked out the door.

Sarah stood rooted to the spot for a moment, adrenaline coursing through her body, before she remembered where she was. She turned back to her sisters.

“Christ, Mika,” Sarah muttered at the sight of her.

She was sat on the floor against the wall, surrounded on either side by two of her sisters, Alison tightly gripping her hand while Cosima applied pressure to the wound. Blood trickled from the end of her sleeve, forming a small pool on the floor.

Sarah kneeled down in front of her.

“Shit,” she muttered. “I’m so sorry. I--”

“We should jump,” Mika said through gritted teeth. Something burned in her eyes. “Before I… pass out.”

“Right, yeah,” Sarah said, snapping back into gear. “Let’s get outta here.”

She exchanged a nod with Cosima as the group formed a circle.

“Alright, Mika,” Sarah said. “It’s time.”

MK nodded weakly. Her face had gone pale. Nervous, Sarah closed her eyes and let her mind go blank.

 

* * *

 

Rachel pushed open the door to her office, cast in pale blue under the light of her laptop screen. She stepped around her desk to the cabinet in the corner and pulled out a glass and bottle from inside. She took a seat.

 _It was over._ Whatever this was, whatever she had been fighting for, it was over. Walking out that door had meant walking away from it all. She supposed she should be feeling something in this moment: anger or sadness or even relief? The truth was that she too afraid to let herself feel much of anything right now.

Her eyes fell to her desk, to the note in her handwriting that she’d found there once she regained consciousness.

_Nine years from now, you will be one of the very last surviving Leda subjects. You will have found love, the most brilliant flash of it, and you will have thrown it away. Not even DYAD will want anything to do with you. In every way, in every sense of the word, you will be alone._

_It is exactly the future you deserve._

 

* * *

 

For a moment, everything was still, nothing but the sound of Sarah’s sisters’ breathing around her.

Then, she felt the familiar chill, small at first, then quickly growing in strength, filling her veins. It tore through her, became a part of her, became all of her. She let go.

One.

_Sarah_

Two.

_come home_

_Three._


End file.
